Spin diffusion in Si/SiGe quantum wells: spin relaxation in the absence of D'yakonov-Perel' relaxation mechanism

TL;DR

This paper investigates spin relaxation during spin diffusion in symmetric Si/SiGe quantum wells, revealing that inhomogeneous broadening causes relaxation independent of scattering, with magnetic field and electron density significantly influencing the process.

Contribution

It provides a microscopic calculation of spin relaxation in Si/SiGe quantum wells without D'yakonov-Perel' mechanism, highlighting the distinct role of scattering and inhomogeneous broadening.

Findings

Scattering monotonically suppresses spin diffusion in this system.

Magnetic field reduces spin diffusion.

Electron density enhances spin diffusion in degenerate electrons.

Abstract

In this work, the spin relaxation accompanying the spin diffusion in symmetric Si/SiGe quantum wells without the D'yakonov-Perel' spin-relaxation mechanism is calculated from a fully microscopic approach. The spin relaxation is caused by the inhomogeneous broadening from the momentum-dependent spin precessions in spatial domain under a magnetic field in the Voigt configuration. In fact, this inhomogeneous broadening together with the scattering lead to an irreversible spin relaxation along the spin diffusion. The effects of scattering, magnetic field and electron density on spin diffusion are investigated. Unlike the case of spin diffusion in the system with the D'yakonov-Perel' spin-orbit coupling such as GaAs quantum wells where the scattering can either enhance or reduce spin diffusion depending on whether the system is in strong or weak scattering limit, the scattering in the present system has no counter-effect on the inhomogeneous broadening and suppresses the spin diffusion monotonically. The increase of magnetic field reduces the spin diffusion, while the increase of electron density enhances the spin diffusion when the electrons are degenerate but has marginal effect when the electrons are nondegenerate.