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

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.Comment: 3 page

Spin relaxation in a generic two-dimensional spin-orbit coupled system

We study the relaxation of a spin density injected into a two-dimensional electron system with generic spin-orbit interactions. Our model includes the Rashba as well as linear and cubic Dresselhaus terms. We explicitly derive a general spin-charge coupled diffusion equation. Spin diffusion is characterized by just two independent dimensionless parameters which control the interplay between different spin-orbit couplings. The real-time representation of the diffuson matrix (Green's function of the diffusion equation) is evaluated analytically. The diffuson describes space-time dynamics of the injected spin distribution. We explicitly study two regimes: The first regime corresponds to negligible spin-charge coupling and is characterized by standard charge diffusion decoupled from the spin dynamics. It is shown that there exist several qualitatively different dynamic behaviors of the spin density, which correspond to various domains in the spin-orbit coupling parameter space. We discuss in detail a few interesting phenomena such as an enhancement of the spin relaxation times, real space oscillatory dynamics, and anisotropic transport. In the second regime, we include the effects of spin-charge coupling. It is shown that the spin-charge coupling leads to an enhancement of the effective charge diffusion coefficient. We also find that in the case of strong spin-charge coupling, the relaxation rates formally become complex and the spin/charge dynamics is characterized by real time oscillations. These effects are qualitatively similar to those observed in spin-grating experiments [Weber et al., Nature 437, 1330 (2005)].Comment: 18 pages, 7 figure

Non-equilibrium spin polarization effects in spin-orbit coupling system and contacting metallic leads

We study theoretically the current-induced spin polarization effect in a two-terminal mesoscopic structure which is composed of a semiconductor two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) bar with Rashba spin-orbit (SO) interaction and two attached ideal leads. The nonequilibrium spin density is calculated by solving the scattering wave functions explicitly within the ballistic transport regime. We found that for a Rashba SO system the electrical current can induce spin polarization in the SO system as well as in the ideal leads. The induced polarization in the 2DEG shows some qualitative features of the intrinsic spin Hall effect. On the other hand, the nonequilibrium spin density in the ideal leads, after being averaged in the transversal direction, is independent of the distance measured from the lead/SO system interface, except in the vicinity of the interface. Such a lead polarization effect can even be enhanced by the presence of weak impurity scattering in the SO system and may be detectable in real experiments.Comment: 6 pages,5 figure

Electron-electron scattering effect on spin relaxation in multi-valley nanostructures

We develop a theory of effects of electron-electron collisions on the Dyakonov-Perel' spin relaxation in multi-valley quantum wells. It is shown that the electron-electron scattering rate which governs the spin relaxation is different from that in a single-valley system. The theory is applied to Si/SiGe (001)-grown quantum wells where two valleys are simultaneously populated by free carriers. The dependences of the spin relaxation rate on temperature, electron concentration and valley-orbit splitting are calculated and discussed. We demonstrate that in a wide range of temperatures the electron-electron collisions can govern spin relaxation in high-quality Si/SiGe quantum wells.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, EPL style, revised versio

Non-equilibrium spin dynamics in a trapped Fermi gas with effective spin-orbit interaction

We consider a trapped atomic system in the presence of spatially varying laser fields. The laser-atom interaction generates a pseudospin degree of freedom (referred to simply as spin) and leads to an effective spin-orbit coupling for the fermions in the trap. Reflections of the fermions from the trap boundaries provide a physical mechanism for effective momentum relaxation and non-trivial spin dynamics due to the emergent spin-orbit coupling. We explicitly consider evolution of an initially spin-polarized Fermi gas in a two-dimensional harmonic trap and derive non-equilibrium behavior of the spin polarization. It shows periodic echoes with a frequency equal to the harmonic trapping frequency. Perturbations, such as an asymmetry of the trap, lead to the suppression of the spin echo amplitudes. We discuss a possible experimental setup to observe spin dynamics and provide numerical estimates of relevant parameters.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; published versio

Long-term Dynamics of the Electron-nuclear Spin System of a Semiconductor Quantum Dot

A quasi-classical theoretical description of polarization and relaxation of nuclear spins in a quantum dot with one resident electron is developed for arbitrary mechanisms of electron spin polarization. The dependence of the electron-nuclear spin dynamics on the correlation time $\tau_c$ of electron spin precession, with frequency $\Omega$, in the nuclear hyperfine field is analyzed. It is demonstrated that the highest nuclear polarization is achieved for a correlation time close to the period of electron spin precession in the nuclear field. For these and larger correlation times, the indirect hyperfine field, which acts on nuclear spins, also reaches a maximum. This maximum is of the order of the dipole-dipole magnetic field that nuclei create on each other. This value is non-zero even if the average electron polarization vanishes. It is shown that the transition from short correlation time to $\Omega\tau_c>1$ does not affect the general structure of the equation for nuclear spin temperature and nuclear polarization in the Knight field, but changes the values of parameters, which now become functions of $\Omega\tau_c$. For correlation times larger than the precession time of nuclei in the electron hyperfine field, it is found that three thermodynamic potentials ($\chi$, $\bm{\xi}$, $\varsigma$) characterize the polarized electron-nuclear spin system. The values of these potentials are calculated assuming a sharp transition from short to long correlation times, and the relaxation mechanisms of these potentials are discussed. The relaxation of the nuclear spin potential is simulated numerically showing that high nuclear polarization decreases relaxation rate.Comment: RevTeX 4, 12 pages, 9 figure

Theory of Spin-Charge Coupled Transport in a Two-Dimensional Electron Gas with Rashba Spin-Orbit Interactions

We use microscopic linear response theory to derive a set of equations that provide a complete description of coupled spin and charge diffusive transport in a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) with the Rashba spin-orbit (SO) interaction. These equations capture a number of interrelated effects including spin accumulation and diffusion, Dyakonov-Perel spin relaxation, magnetoelectric, and spin-galvanic effects. They can be used under very general circumstances to model transport experiments in 2DEG systems that involve either electrical or optical spin injection. We comment on the relationship between these equations and the exact spin and charge density operator equations of motion. As an example of the application of our equations, we consider a simple electrical spin injection experiment and show that a voltage will develop between two ferromagnetic contacts if a spin-polarized current is injected into a 2DEG, that depends on the relative magnetization orientation of the contacts. This voltage is present even when the separation between the contacts is larger than the spin diffusion length.Comment: 8 pages, 1 eps figure. Corrected an error in the calculation of the spin-charge coupling coefficient, pointed out in cond-mat/0406730, added several reference

Spin relaxation in the impurity band of a semiconductor in the external magnetic field

Spin relaxation in the impurity band of a 2D semiconductor with spin-split spectrum in the external magnetic field is considered. Several mechanisms of spin relaxation are shown to be relevant. The first one is attributed to phonon-assisted transitions between Zeeman sublevels of the ground state of an isolated impurity, while other mechanisms can be described in terms of spin precession in a random magnetic field during the electron motion over the impurity band. In the later case there are two contributions to the spin relaxation: the one given by optimal impurity configurations with the hop-waiting time inversely proportional to the external magnetic field and another one related to the electron motion on a large scale. The average spin relaxation rate is calculated

Phonon-induced decoherence for a quantum dot spin qubit operated by Raman passage

We study single-qubit gates performed via stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) on a spin qubit implemented in a quantum dot system in the presence of phonons. We analyze the interplay of various kinds of errors resulting from the carrier-phonon interaction as well as from quantum jumps related to nonadiabaticity and calculate the fidelity as a function of the pulse parameters. We give quantitative estimates for an InAs/GaAs system and identify the parameter values for which the error is considerably minimized, even to values below $10^{-4}$ per operation.Comment: Final version; considerable extensions; 18 pages, 7 figure

Bremsstrahlung Spectrum in alpha Decay

Using our previous approach to electromagnetic emission during tunneling, an explicit, essentially classical, formula describing the bremsstrahlung spectrum in alpha decay is derived. The role of tunneling motion in photon emission is discussed. The shape of the spectrum is a universal function of the ratio Eg/Eo , where Eg is the photon energy and Eo is a characteristic energy depending only on the nuclear charge and the energy of the alpha particle.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure