Optical orientation of electron spins by linearly polarized light

Absorption of circularly polarized light in semiconductors is known to result in optical orientation of electron and hole spins. It has been shown here that in semiconductor quantum well structures spin orientation of carriers can be achieved by linearly or even unpolarized light. Moreover, the sign and magnitude of the spin orientation can be varied by rotating the polarization plane of incidence light. The effect under study is related to reduced symmetry of the quantum wells as compared to bulk materials and, microscopically, caused by zero-field spin splitting of electron and hole states.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Scattering induced spin orientation and spin currents in gyrotropic structures

It is shown that additional contributions both to current-induced spin orientation and to the spin Hall effect arise in quantum wells due to gyrotropy of the structures. Microscopically, they are related to basic properties of gyrotropic systems, namely, linear in the wave vector terms in the matrix element of electron scattering and in the energy spectrum. Calculation shows that in high-mobility structures the contribution to the spin Hall current considered here can exceed the term originated from the Mott skew scattering.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Splitting of Resonant Frequencies of Acoustic Waves in Rotating Compressible Fluid

It is shown that in a rotating compressible fluid the resonant frequencies (measured in a system of reference rotating together with the medium) for the azimuthally running acoustic waves are split into two components. The received results can be of practical significance as a basis of a method of measurements of angular speed of medium and for acoustics of rotating technical devices.Comment: LaTeX file, 5 pages, 2 table

Spatiotemporal spin fluctuations caused by spin-orbit-coupled Brownian motion

We develop a theory of thermal fluctuations of spin density emerging in a two-dimensional electron gas. The spin fluctuations probed at spatially separated spots of the sample are correlated due to Brownian motion of electrons and spin-obit coupling. We calculate the spatiotemporal correlation functions of the spin density for both ballistic and diffusive transport of electrons and analyze them for different types of spin-orbit interaction including the isotropic Rashba model and persistent spin helix regime. The measurement of spatial spin fluctuations provides direct access to the parameters of spin-orbit coupling and spin transport in conditions close to the thermal equilibrium.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Electron spin dephasing in two-dimensional systems with anisotropic scattering

We develop a microscopic theory of spin relaxation of a two-dimensional electron gas in quantum wells with anisotropic electron scattering. Both precessional and collision-dominated regimes of spin dynamics are studied. It is shown that, in quantum wells with noncentrosymmetric scatterers, the in-plane and out-of-plane spin components are coupled: spin dephasing of carriers initially polarized along the quantum well normal leads to the emergence of an in-plane spin component even in the case of isotropic spin-orbit splitting. In the collision-dominated regime, the spin-relaxation-rate tensor is expressed in terms of the electric conductivity tensor. We also study the effect of an in-plane and out-of-plane external magnetic field on spin dephasing and show that the field dependence of electron spin can be very intricate.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure

Limitation of electron mobility from hyperfine interaction in ultra-clean quantum wells and topological insulators

The study of electron transport and scattering processes limiting electron mobility in high-quality semiconductor structures is central to solid-state electronics. Here, we uncover an unavoidable source of electron scattering which is caused by fluctuations of nuclear spins. We calculate the momentum relaxation time of electrons in quantum wells governed by the hyperfine interaction between electrons and nuclei and show that this time drastically depends on the spatial correlation of nuclear spins. Moreover, the scattering processes accompanied by a spin flip are a source of the backscattering of Dirac fermions at conducting surfaces of topological insulators.Comment: 5 page

Reflection of short polarized optical pulses from periodic and aperiodic multiple quantum well structures

We study the reflection of polarized optical pulses from resonant photonic structures formed by periodic, Fibonacci, and gradient sequences of quantum wells. The form and polarization of the reflected pulse are shown to be determined by the structure design and optical length. In structures with periodic quantum well arrangement, the response to ultrashort pulse is an optical signal with a sharp rise followed by an exponential decay or Bessel beats depending on the structure length. The duration of reflected pulses non-monotonically depends on the number of quantum wells reaching the minimum for a certain structure length which corresponds to the transition from superradiant to photonic-crystalline regime. We also study the conversion of pulse polarization in the longitudinal external magnetic field which splits the exciton resonance. Comparing periodic, Fibonacci, and gradient structures we show that the latter are more efficient for the conversion from linear to circular polarization.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figure

Spring Changeover of the Middle Atmosphere Circulation Compared with Rocket Wind Data up to 80 Km

The middle atmosphere circulation is governed by two seasonal basic states in winter and summer, twice a year separated by relatively shortlived reversal periods. These seasonal basic states of circulation and the spring changeover period between them are investigated

Magnetic field effects on edge and bulk states in topological insulators based on HgTe/CdHgTe quantum wells with strong natural interface inversion asymmetry

We present a theory of the electron structure and the Zeeman effect for the helical edge states emerging in two-dimensional topological insulators based on HgTe/HgCdTe quantum wells with strong natural interface inversion asymmetry. The interface inversion asymmetry, reflecting the real atomistic structure of the quantum well, drastically modifies both bulk and edge states. For the in-plane magnetic field, this asymmetry leads to a strong anisotropy of the edge-state effective $g$-factor which becomes dependent on the edge orientation. The interface inversion asymmetry also couples the counter propagating edge states in the out-of-plane magnetic field leading to the opening of the gap in the edge-state spectrum by arbitrary small fields.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figure

Ratchet transport of a two-dimensional electron gas at cyclotron resonance

The driving of charge carriers confined in a quantum well lacking the center of space inversion by an alternating electric field leads to the formation of a direct electric current. We develop a microscopic theory of such a quantum ratchet effect for quantum wells subjected to a static magnetic field. We show that the ratchet current emerges for a linearly polarized alternating electric field as well as a rotating electric field and drastically increases at the cyclotron resonance conditions. For the magnetic field tilted with respect to the quantum well normal, the ratchet current contains an additional resonance at the first subharmonic of the cyclotron resonance.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure