Temperature-dependent electron Landé g factor and the interband matrix element of GaAs

Very high precision measurements of the electron Landé g factor in GaAs are presented using spin-quantum beat spectroscopy at low excitation densities and temperatures ranging from 2.6 to 300 K. In colligation with available data for the temperature-dependent effective mass temperature dependence of the interband matrix element within a common five-level k⋅p theory can model both parameters consistently. A strong decrease in the interband matrix element with increasing temperature consistently closes a long lasting gap between experiment and theory and substantially improves the modeling of both parameters. © 2009 The American Physical Society

Spin dynamics in high-mobility two-dimensional electron systems

Understanding the spin dynamics in semiconductor heterostructures is highly important for future semiconductor spintronic devices. In high-mobility two-dimensional electron systems (2DES), the spin lifetime strongly depends on the initial degree of spin polarization due to the electron-electron interaction. The Hartree-Fock (HF) term of the Coulomb interaction acts like an effective out-of-plane magnetic field and thus reduces the spin-flip rate. By time-resolved Faraday rotation (TRFR) techniques, we demonstrate that the spin lifetime is increased by an order of magnitude as the initial spin polarization degree is raised from the low-polarization limit to several percent. We perform control experiments to decouple the excitation density in the sample from the spin polarization degree and investigate the interplay of the internal HF field and an external perpendicular magnetic field. The lifetime of spins oriented in the plane of a [001]-grown 2DES is strongly anisotropic if the Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit fields are of the same order of magnitude. This anisotropy, which stems from the interference of the Rashba and the Dresselhaus spin-orbit fields, is highly density-dependent: as the electron density is increased, the kubic Dresselhaus term becomes dominant and reduces the anisotropy.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure