Dyakonov-Perel spin relaxation near metal-insulator transition and in hopping transport

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Dyakonov-Perel spin relaxation behaves across the metal-insulator transition in heavily doped semiconductors with weak spin-orbital interaction, extending the known proportionality to conductivity into the hopping regime.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the proportionality between Dyakonov-Perel spin relaxation rate and conductivity persists beyond the Drude regime, including through the metal-insulator transition and in hopping transport.

Findings

Proportionality between spin relaxation rate and conductivity remains valid across the transition.

The relationship extends into regimes with exponentially small hopping conductivity.

The study broadens understanding of spin dynamics in disordered semiconductors.

Abstract

In a heavily doped semiconductor with weak spin-orbital interaction the Dyakonov-Perel spin relaxation rate is known to be proportional to the Drude conductivity. We argue that in the case of weak spin-orbital interaction this proportionality goes beyond the Drude mechanism: it stays valid through the metal-insulator transition and in the range of the exponentially small hopping conductivity.