Spin relaxation and combined resonance in two-dimensional electron systems with spin-orbit disorder

TL;DR

This paper investigates how disorder in spin-orbit coupling affects spin relaxation and enables electric dipole spin resonance in two-dimensional electron systems, with implications for spintronics applications.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of spin relaxation caused by SO disorder and demonstrates the potential for electric field-driven spin manipulation in 2D electron gases.

Findings

Quantum effects in spin relaxation at small disorder scales.

Electric fields induce spatially random spin perturbations.

Electric dipole spin resonance enables spin injection at Fermi energies.

Abstract

Disorder in spin-orbit (SO) coupling is an important feature of real low-dimensional electron structures. We study spin relaxation due to such a disorder as well as resulting abilities of spin manipulation. The spin relaxation reveals quantum effects when the spatial scale of the randomness is smaller than the electron wavelength. Due to the disorder in SO coupling, a time-dependent external electric field generates a spatially random spin-dependent perturbation. The resulting electric dipole spin resonance in a two-dimensional electron gas leads to spin injection in a frequency range of the order of the Fermi energy. These effects can be important for possible applications in spintronics.