Depolarization of the photoluminescence and spin relaxation in n-doped GaAs

Optically oriented electron spin lifetime in n-doped gallium arsenide was measured via depolarization of the photoluminescence (PL) in a transverse magnetic field (Hanle effect). In order to measure the PL polarization, a time-resolved pump-probe experiment, where a pump pulse generates spin-polarized electrons and a probe pulse monitors their polarization, was employed. The PL polarization in dependences of the pump-probe delay, external magnetic field as well as of the sample temperature was studied. The PL polarization was found to decay exponentially with the pump-probe delay, from which the spin lifetime of the electrons was measured. The measured value was found to depend on the strength of the magnetic field and sample temperature.     

半导体量子阱中电子自旋弛豫和动量弛豫

根据电子自旋轨道耦合对自旋极化弛豫影响的DP机理进一步导出了半导体中电子自旋弛豫与动量弛豫及载流子浓度的关系，并采用飞秒抽运探测技术在室温下测量AlGaAs/GaAs 多量子阱中载流子浓度在 1×10¹⁷—1×10¹⁸cm^-3范围内，电子自旋弛豫时间由58ps增加至82 ps的变化情况，与理论计算值符合，说明了随着载流子浓度的增加，载流子间的频繁散射加速了电子动量驰豫，减弱了电子自旋轨道耦合作用，从而延长了电子自旋寿命. 关键词： 电子自旋轨道耦合 电子自旋弛豫和动量弛豫 飞秒光谱技术     

High field electron-spin transport and observation of the Dyakonov-Perel spin relaxation of drifting electrons in low temperature-grown gallium arsenide

High field electron-spin transport in low temperature-grown gallium arsenide is studied. We generate electron spins in the samples by optical pumping. During transport, we observe the Dyakonov-Perel (DP) [M.I. Dyakonov, V.I. Perel, Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. 60 (1971) 1954] spin relaxation of the drifting electrons. The results are discussed and are compared with those obtained in calculations of the DP spin relaxation frequency of the hot electrons. A good agreement is obtained.     

Understanding Overhauser Dynamic Nuclear Polarisation through NMR relaxometry

Overhauser dynamic nuclear polarisation (DNP) represents a potentially outstanding tool to increase the sensitivity of solution and solid state NMR experiments, as well as of magnetic resonance imaging. DNP signal enhancements are strongly linked to the spin relaxation properties of the system under investigation, which must contain a paramagnetic molecule used as DNP polariser. In turn, nuclear spin relaxation can be monitored through NMR relaxometry, which reports on the field dependence of the nuclear relaxation rates, opening a route to understand the physical processes at the origin of the Overhauser DNP in solution. The contributions of dipole–dipole and Fermi-contact interactions to paramagnetic relaxation are here described and shown to be responsible to both the relaxometry profiles and the DNP enhancements, so that the experimental access to the former can allow for predictions of the latter.     

Optical orientation and spin relaxation of resident electrons in n-doped InAs/GaAs self-assembled quantum dots

We report on optical orientation of electrons in n-doped InAs/GaAs quantum dots. Under non-resonant cw optical pumping, we measure a negative circular polarization of the luminescence of charged excitons (or trions) at low temperature (T=10 K). The dynamics of the recombination and of the circular polarization is studied by time-resolved spectroscopy. We discuss a simple theoretical model for the trion relaxation, that accounts for this remarkable polarization reversal. The interpretation relies on the bypass of Pauli blocking allowed by the anisotropic electron–hole exchange. Eventually, the spin relaxation time of doping electrons trapped in quantum dots is measured by a non-resonant pump–probe experiment.     

Extension of Yafet's theory of spin relaxation to ferromagnets

By making use of Kramer's degeneracy of the electronic states in a nonmagnetic material, Yafet has derived an expression for the spin relaxation time T₁ due to scattering of electrons at phonons which involves the properties of electronic and phononic states and the matrix elements for the scattering. It is shown that an analogous expression for T₁ can be derived for ferromagnets (where Kramer's degeneracy does not hold) when taking into account the conservation of the total number of electrons. This expression can be used as a starting point for the ab initio calculation of T₁, and this quantity is required for an interpretation of the ultrafast demagnetization of ferromagnets after excitation with a femtosecond laser pulse.     

Chain dynamics in a chiral C phase by deuteron spin relaxation study

Molecular reorientations and internal conformational transitions of an aligned chiral liquid crystal (LC) 10B1M7 are studied by means of deuterium spin-lattice relaxation in its smectic A (SmA) and smectic C* (SmC*) phase. The motional model which is applicable to uniaxial phases of many LCs is found to be adequate even when the phase is a tilted SmC* phase. The deuterium NMR spectrum in this phase cannot discern rotations of the molecular director about the pitch axis. The basic assumption is that the phase biaxiality is practically unobservable. However, the relaxation rates can be accounted for by the tilt angle between the molecular director and the layer normal in the SmC* phase. The tumbling motion appears to show a higher activation energy upon entering from the uniaxial SmA into the SmC* phase.     

Atomic refinement with correlated solid-state NMR restraints

The orientation data provided by solid-state NMR can provide a great deal of structural information about membrane proteins. The quality of the information provided is, however, somewhat degraded by sign degeneracies in measurements of the dipolar coupling tensor. This is reflected in the dipolar coupling penalty function used in atomic refinement, which is less capable of properly restraining atoms when dipolar sign degeneracies are present. In this report we generate simulated solid-state NMR data using a variety of procedures, including back-calculation from crystal structures of alpha-helical and beta-sheet membrane proteins. We demonstrate that a large fraction of the dipolar sign degeneracies are resolved if anisotropic dipolar coupling measurements are correlated with anisotropic chemical shift measurements, and that all sign degeneracies can be resolved if three data types are correlated. The advantages of correlating data are demonstrated with atomic refinement of two test membrane proteins. When refinement is performed using correlated dipolar couplings and chemical shifts, perturbed structures converge to conformations with a larger fraction of correct dipolar signs than when data are uncorrelated. In addition, the final structures are closer to the original unperturbed structures when correlated data are used in the refinement. Thus, refinement with correlated data leads to improved atomic structures. The software used to correlate dipolar coupling and chemical shift data and to set up energy functions and their derivatives for refinement, CNS-SS02, is available at our web site.     

Spin transport and relaxation in graphene

We review our recent work on spin injection, transport and relaxation in graphene. The spin injection and transport in single layer graphene (SLG) were investigated using nonlocal magnetoresistance (MR) measurements. Spin injection was performed using either transparent contacts (Co/SLG) or tunneling contacts (Co/MgO/SLG). With tunneling contacts, the nonlocal MR was increased by a factor of ∼1000 and the spin injection/detection efficiency was greatly enhanced from ∼1% (transparent contacts) to ∼30%. Spin relaxation was investigated on graphene spin valves using nonlocal Hanle measurements. For transparent contacts, the spin lifetime was in the range of 50-100 ps. The effects of surface chemical doping showed that for spin lifetimes in the order of 100 ps, charged impurity scattering (Au) was not the dominant mechanism for spin relaxation. While using tunneling contacts to suppress the contact-induced spin relaxation, we observed the spin lifetimes as long as 771 ps at room temperature, 1.2 ns at 4 K in SLG, and 6.2 ns at 20 K in bilayer graphene (BLG). Furthermore, contrasting spin relaxation behaviors were observed in SLG and BLG. We found that Elliot-Yafet spin relaxation dominated in SLG at low temperatures whereas Dyakonov-Perel spin relaxation dominated in BLG at low temperatures. Gate tunable spin transport was studied using the SLG property of gate tunable conductivity and incorporating different types of contacts (transparent and tunneling contacts). Consistent with theoretical predictions, the nonlocal MR was proportional to the SLG conductivity for transparent contacts and varied inversely with the SLG conductivity for tunneling contacts. Finally, bipolar spin transport in SLG was studied and an electron-hole asymmetry was observed for SLG spin valves with transparent contacts, in which nonlocal MR was roughly independent of DC bias current for electrons, but varied significantly with DC bias current for holes. These results are very important for the use of graphene for spin-based logic and information storage applications.     

Electron spin coherence in Si

We discuss pulsed electron spin resonance measurements of electrons in Si and determine the spin coherence from the decay of the spin echo signals. Tightly bound donor electrons in isotopically enriched ²⁸Si are found to have exceptionally long spin coherence. Placing the donors near a surface or interface is found to decrease the spin coherence time, but it is still in the range of milliseconds. Unbound two-dimensional electrons have shorter coherence times of a few microseconds, though still long compared to the Zeeman frequency or the typical time to manipulate a spin with microwave pulses. Longer spin coherence is expected in two-dimensional systems patterned into quantum dots, but relatively small dots will be required. Data from dots with a lithographic size of 400 nm do not yet show longer spin coherence.     

二维量子点中极化子的自旋弛豫

在考虑Rashba自旋-轨道耦合的条件下, 采用二次幺正变换和变分方法研究了二维抛物量子点中由于电子与体纵光学声子的耦合作用形成的极化子在基态Zeeman分裂能级上的自旋弛豫过程.这一过程主要是通过吸收或发射一个形变势或压电声学声子完成.具体分析了强、弱耦合两种极限下极化子自旋弛豫率与外磁场、量子点半径、Landau因子参数、Rashba自旋轨道耦合参数的变化关系. 关键词： 自旋弛豫 极化子 Rashba自旋轨道耦合 量子点     

Effect of temperature,electric and magnetic field on spin relaxation in single layer graphene: A Monte Carlo simulation study

In this article, we employ the semiclassical Monte Carlo approach to study the spin polarized electron transport in single layer graphene channel. The Monte Carlo method can treat non-equilibrium carrier transport and effects of external electric and magnetic fields on carrier transport can be incorporated in the formalism. Graphene is the ideal material for spintronics application due to very low Spin Orbit Interaction. Spin relaxation in graphene is caused by D'yakonov-Perel (DP) relaxation and Elliott-Yafet (EY) relaxation. We study effect of electron electron scattering, temperature, magnetic field and driving electric field on spin relaxation length in single layer graphene. We have considered injection polarization along z-direction which is perpendicular to the plane of graphene and the magnitude of ensemble averaged spin variation is studied along the x-direction which is the transport direction. This theoretical investigation is particularly important in order to identify the factors responsible for experimentally observed spin relaxation length in graphene.     

Introduction to spin physics in semiconductors

This lecture presents a brief survey of spin physics in semiconductors together with the historic roots of the recent activity in investigating spin-related phenomena.     

Membrane fluidity profiles as deduced by saturation-recovery EPR measurements of spin-lattice relaxation times of spin labels

There are no easily obtainable EPR spectral parameters for lipid spin labels that describe profiles of membrane fluidity. The order parameter, which is most often used as a measure of membrane fluidity, describes the amplitude of wobbling motion of alkyl chains relative to the membrane normal and does not contain explicitly time or velocity. Thus, this parameter can be considered as nondynamic. The spin-lattice relaxation rate () obtained from saturation-recovery EPR measurements of lipid spin labels in deoxygenated samples depends primarily on the rotational correlation time of the nitroxide moiety within the lipid bilayer. Thus, can be used as a convenient quantitative measure of membrane fluidity that reflects local membrane dynamics. profiles obtained for 1-palmitoyl-2-(n-doxylstearoyl)phosphatidylcholine (n-PC) spin labels in dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine (DMPC) membranes with and without 50 mol% cholesterol are presented in parallel with profiles of the rotational diffusion coefficient, R_⊥, obtained from simulation of EPR spectra using Freed’s model. These profiles are compared with profiles of the order parameter obtained directly from EPR spectra and with profiles of the order parameter obtained from simulation of EPR spectra. It is shown that and R_⊥ profiles reveal changes in membrane fluidity that depend on the motional properties of the lipid alkyl chain. We find that cholesterol has a rigidifying effect only to the depth occupied by the rigid steroid ring structure and a fluidizing effect at deeper locations. These effects cannot be differentiated by profiles of the order parameter. All profiles in this study were obtained at X-band (9.5 GHz).     

Amide proton relaxation measurements employing a highly deuterated protein

Proton NMR longitudinal and transverse relaxation rates of unlabelled proteins are generally dominated by the many 1H-1H dipolar interactions so that spin diffusion, rather than molecular or internal motions, governs longitudinal relaxation. Here, relaxation measurements of backbone amide proton (1H(N)) magnetisations have been carried out employing the 99% 2H, 98% 15N labelled, small 2F2 protein domain in 10%/90% H(2)O/D(2)O solution. Under these conditions, the longitudinal relaxation rates exhibit time constants, T(1)*=1/R(1)* if described by a mono-exponential, within the range of 3.0 to 18.7s-a wide range which indicates that the phenomenon of spin diffusion has been greatly reduced. The majority of 1H(N) nuclei in this sample (pH 4.0 and 5 degrees C) exhibit chemical exchange with solvent that couples their longitudinal relaxation to that of the solvent. For the subset of 1H(N) nuclei not undergoing detectable solvent chemical exchange, the R(1)* rates correlate well with their individual 1H(N,O)/2H(N,O) structural environments. The correlation for corresponding transverse relaxation rates, R(2)* was found to be less good. Longitudinal relaxation measurements in 1%/99% H(2)O/D(2)O solution identify a further subset of 1H(N) nuclei which exhibit essentially indistinguishable R(1)* rates in both 1% and 10% H(2)O, implying that averaging of rates from spin diffusion processes and different 2F2 isotopomer populations are negligible for these 1H(N) sites. In addition to a high sensitivity to structural parameters, model calculations predict 1H(N) relaxation rates to exhibit pronounced sensitivity to internal dynamics.     

Polaritonic coupling and spin dynamics in GaAs microcavities

We have used time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy to study the light emission dynamics in a semiconductor microcavity as a function of excitation density and exciton-cavity detuning. We paid special attention to polariton spin relaxation by using circularly polarized excitation. We have found a striking behavior of the photoluminescence degree of polarization, which reaches its maximum value at a finite time. As the excitation density is increased and the system enters the stimulated emission regime, this maximum is followed by a negative dip, whose depth strongly depends on exciton-cavity detuning.     

Rotating frame relaxation during adiabatic pulses vs. conventional spin lock: simulations and experimental results at 4 T

Spin relaxation taking place during radiofrequency (RF) irradiation can be assessed by measuring the longitudinal and transverse rotating frame relaxation rate constants (R_1ρ and R_2ρ). These relaxation parameters can be altered by utilizing different settings of the RF irradiation, thus providing a useful tool to generate contrast in MRI. In this work, we investigate the dependencies of R_1ρ and R_2ρ due to dipolar interactions and anisochronous exchange (i.e., exchange between spins with different chemical shift δω≠0) on the properties of conventional spin-lock and adiabatic pulses, with particular emphasis on the latter ones which were not fully described previously. The results of simulations based on relaxation theory provide a foundation for formulating practical considerations for in vivo applications of rotating frame relaxation methods. Rotating frame relaxation measurements obtained from phantoms and from the human brain at 4 T are presented to confirm the theoretical predictions.     

Time relaxation of the solutions of master equations for large systems

The time relaxation behavior of the solutions of certain classes of discrete master equations is studied in the limit of an infinite number of states. Depending on the range of the transition matrix, a relaxation behavior is found reaching from at ^–1/2 law for short range, over enhanced relaxation to an exponential relaxation for the extreme long-range case. The behavior in the limit of a continuous family of states is also discussed.     

Non-Arrhenius relaxation of the Heisenberg model with dipolar and anisotropic interactions

The dynamical properties of a 2D Heisenberg model with dipolar interactions and perpendicular anisotropy are studied using Monte Carlo simulations in two different ordered regions of the equilibrium phase diagram. We find a temperature defining a dynamical transition below which the relaxation suddenly slows down and the system apart from the typical Arrhenius relaxation to a Vogel-Fulcher-Tamann law. This anomalous behavior is observed in the scaling of the magnetic relaxation and may eventually lead to a freezing of the system. Through the analysis of the domain structures we explain this behavior in terms of the domains dynamics. Moreover, we calculate the energy barriers distribution obtained from the data of the magnetic viscosity. Its shape supports our comprehension of both, the Vogel-Fulcher-Tamann dynamical slowing down and the freezing mechanism.