Electron-nucleus spin correlation conservation of the spin dependent recombination in Ga$^{2+}$ centers

TL;DR

This paper revisits the spin-dependent recombination mechanism in GaAsN, identifying and correcting modeling errors to better match experimental observations of magnetic fields and polarization in spintronic devices.

Contribution

It introduces an alternative recombination model that preserves electron-nucleus correlations, improving agreement with experimental data over previous models.

Findings

Enhanced agreement with experimental magnetic field measurements

Accurate modeling of photoluminescence linewidth as a function of illumination

Better prediction of electron spin polarization in GaAsN

Abstract

Spin dependent recombination in GaAsN offers many interesting possibilities in the design of spintronic devices mostly due to its astounding capability to reach conduction band electron spin polarizations close to 100% at room temperature. The mechanism behind the spin selective capture of electrons in Ga$^{2+}$ paramagnetic centers is revisited in this paper to address inconsistencies common to most previously presented models. Primarily, these errors manifest themselves as major disagreements with the experimental observations of two key characteristics of this phenomenon: the effective Overhauser-like magnetic field and the width of the photoluminescence Lorentzian-like curves as a function of the illumination power. These features are not only essential to understand the spin dependent recombination in GaAsN, but are also key to the design of novel spintronic devices. Here we demonstrate that the particular structure of the electron capture expressions introduces spurious electron-nucleus correlations that artificially alter the balance between the hyperfine and the Zeeman contributions. This imbalance strongly distorts the effective magnetic field and width characteristics. In this work we propose an alternative recombination mechanism that preserves the electron-nucleus correlations and, at the same time, keeps the essential properties of the spin selective capture of electrons. This mechanism yields a significant improvement to the agreement between experimental and theoretical results. In particular, our model gives results in very good accord with the experimental effective Overhauser-like magnetic field and width data, and with the degree of circular polarization under oblique magnetic fields.