Effects of Dephasing on Spin Lifetime in Ballistic Spin-Orbit Materials

TL;DR

This paper theoretically examines how dephasing affects spin lifetime in ballistic spin-orbit materials like graphene, revealing anisotropic spin relaxation influenced by energy broadening and non-uniform precession.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical analysis of spin dephasing mechanisms in ballistic spin-orbit-coupled materials, highlighting anisotropic spin lifetimes in graphene and related systems.

Findings

Spin lifetime is governed by dephasing from energy broadening and non-uniform precession.

Graphene exhibits strong anisotropy with spin lifetimes of a few nanoseconds.

Results enhance understanding of spin dynamics in spin-orbit-coupled materials.

Abstract

We theoretically investigate spin dynamics in spin-orbit-coupled materials. In the ballistic limit, the spin lifetime is dictated by dephasing that arises from energy broadening plus a non-uniform spin precession. For the case of clean graphene, we find a strong anisotropy with spin lifetimes that can be short even for modest energy scales, on the order of a few ns. These results offer deeper insight into the nature of spin dynamics in graphene, and are also applicable to the investigation of other systems where spin-orbit coupling plays an important role.