Spin relaxation due to random Rashba spin-orbit coupling in GaAs (110) quantum wells

TL;DR

This study uses a microscopic kinetic spin Bloch equation approach to analyze spin relaxation in symmetric GaAs (110) quantum wells, incorporating all relevant scatterings and matching experimental data, while predicting a temperature-dependent peak in relaxation time.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive microscopic analysis of spin relaxation considering all relevant scatterings and successfully reproduces experimental results, also predicting a temperature-dependent peak due to Coulomb scattering.

Findings

Reproduces experimental spin relaxation data.

Predicts a temperature-dependent peak in relaxation time.

Highlights the role of Coulomb scattering at low impurity densities.

Abstract

We investigate the spin relaxation due to the random Rashba spin-orbit coupling in symmetric GaAs (110) quantum wells from the fully microscopic kinetic spin Bloch equation approach. All relevant scatterings, such as the electron-impurity, electron--longitudinal-optical-phonon, electron--acoustic-phonon, as well as electron-electron Coulomb scatterings are explicitly included. It is shown that our calculation reproduces the experimental data by M\"uller {\em et al.} [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 101}, 206601 (2008)] for a reasonable choice of parameter values. We also predict that the temperature dependence of spin relaxation time presents a peak in the case with low impurity density, which originates from the electron-electron Coulomb scattering.