Spin relaxation in n-doped gallium arsenide due to impurity and electron-electron Elliot-Yafet scattering

TL;DR

This paper calculates the spin relaxation times in n-doped gallium arsenide considering impurity and electron-electron scattering mechanisms, revealing their comparable effects and different dependencies on doping and temperature.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical analysis of the Elliot-Yafet spin relaxation mechanism accounting for impurity and electron-electron scattering in gallium arsenide.

Findings

Impurity and electron-electron scattering contribute similarly to spin relaxation times.

Relaxation times depend differently on doping density and temperature.

Theoretical results align with experimental measurements.

Abstract

We calculate the spin relaxation time of conduction electrons in n-doped bulk gallium arsenide. We consider the Elliot-Yafet spin-relaxation mechanism, driven by Coulombic-impurity and electron-electron scattering. We find that these two scattering mechanisms result in relaxation times of equal order of magnitude, but with disimilar dependences on doping density and temperature. Our theoretical results are compared with experimentally measured spin relaxation times in gallium arsenide.