Spin relaxation of Mn ions in (CdMn)Te/(CdMg)Te quantum wells under picosecond optical pumping

Spin relaxation of Mn ions in a Cd_0.97Mn_0.03Te/Cd_0.75Mg_0.25Te quantum well with photogenerated quasi-two-dimensional electron-hole plasma at liquid helium temperatures in an external magnetic field has been investigated. Heating of Mn ions by photogenerated carriers due to spin and energy exchange between the hot electron-hole plasma and Mn ions through direct sd-interaction between electron and Mn spins has been detected. This process has a short characteristic time of about 4 ns, which leads to appreciable heating of the Mn spin subsystem in about 0.5 ns. Even under uniform excitation of a dense electron-hole plasma, the Mn heating is spatially nonuniform, and leads to formation of spin domains in the quantum well magnetic subsystem. The relaxation time of spin domains after pulsed excitation is measured to be about 70 ns. Energy relaxation of excitons in the random exchange potential due to spin domains results from exciton diffusion in magnetic field B=14 T with a characteristic time of 1 to 4 ns. The relaxation time decreases with decreasing optical pump power, which indicates smaller dimensions of spin domains. In weak magnetic fields (_B=2 T) a slow down in the exciton diffusion to 15 ns has been detected. This slow down is due to exciton binding to neutral donors (formation of bound excitons) and smaller spin domain amplitudes in low magnetic fields. The optically determined spin-lattice relaxation time of Mn ions in a magnetic field of 14 T is 270±10 and 16±7 ns for Mn concentrations of 3% and 12%, respectively. Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 112, 1440–1463 (October 1997)     

NMR and magnetic studies on 7 K anomaly in Tl3H(SO4)2

Measurements of the spin-lattice relaxation time, NMR absorption line and magnetization have been carried out on the Tl₃H(SO₄)₂ crystal below 50 K. The anomaly at around 7 K was: (1) the spin-lattice relaxation times of ¹H and ²⁰⁵Tl nuclei increase steeply with decreasing temperature below 7 K, (2) the NMR absorption lines below 7 K shift to the high-magnetic field side in comparison with that above 7 K, and (3) the ¹H NMR line width exhibits a drastic increase of the line width with decreasing temperature below 7 K. These results indicate that the magnetic dipole fluctuation of the proton changes at 7 K. On the other hand, there are no remarkable anomalies of magnetic susceptibility at around 7 K. From these results it is deduced that the anomaly at around 7 K is caused by the change in quantum mechanical process of the proton from proton tunneling to zero-point vibration of hydrogen in the hydrogen bond with the decrease of temperature.     

Metastable phase in the quantum Hall ferromagnet

Time-dependent capacitance measurements reveal an unstable phase of electrons in gallium arsenide quantum well that occurs when two Landau levels with opposite-spin are brought close to degeneracy by applying a gate voltage. This phase emerges below a critical temperature and displays a peculiar non-equilibrium dynamical evolution. The relaxation dynamics is found to follow a stretched-exponential behaviour and correlates with hysteresis loops observed by sweeping the magnetic field. These experiments indicate that metastable randomly distributed magnetic domains with peculiar excitations are involved in the relaxation process in a way that is equivalently tunable by a change in gate voltage or temperature.     

Effect of low and zero magnetic field on the hyperpolarization lifetime in parahydrogenated perdeuterated molecules

Hyperpolarization can be kept for times longer than T₁ if it is maintained in a singlet state, from which transitions are not allowed. Another, more direct, way to slower the relaxation process consists in the use of perdeuterated molecules. Here both methods have been applied and the hyperpolarization (induced by para-H₂) decay rate has been measured at two different magnetic fields: earth field and zero field. While relaxation is very slow at earth field, it becomes faster at zero field: this rather unexpected finding has been explained on the basis of isotropic mixing between ¹H and ²H.     

Quadrupole relaxation enhancement--application to molecular crystals

A general theory of field dependent spin-lattice relaxation for nuclei of the spin quantum number 1/2 (1H, 19F, 13C) caused by dipole-dipole interactions with neighboring quadrupolar nuclei (nuclei possessing a quadrupolar moment) is presented. The theory is valid for arbitrary motional conditions and should be treated as a quadrupolar counterpart of the paramagnetic relaxation enhancement theory. When the energy level splitting of the dipolar spin (I=1/2) matches one of the transition frequencies of the quadrupolar nuclei one can observe a local enhancement of the dipolar spin relaxation (referred to as "quadrupolar peaks"). To see such effects the dynamics modulating the spin interactions has to be relatively slow. This brings the system beyond the validity range of perturbation approaches and requires the stochastic Liouville equation to be applied. The presented theory describes the quadrupolar relaxation enhancement (QRE) for an arbitrary spin quantum number of the quadrupolar nuclei and includes the asymmetry of the quadrupolar coupling. It has been applied to interpret the shape of magnetization curves (amplitude of 1H magnetization versus magnetic field) for the molecular crystal [C3N2H5]6[Bi4Br18] ([C3N2H5]-imidazolium). The magnetization curves show several dips (local minima) attributed to 1H-14N quadrupolar relaxation enhancement effects. In addition, as a limiting case a perturbation approach to QRE has been presented and its validity conditions have been discussed.     

Long-distance super-exchange and quantum magnetic relaxation in a hybrid metal–organic framework

The hybrid metal–organic framework [(CH3)2NH2]Fe(HCOO)3with a perovskite-like structure exhibits a variety of unusual magnetic behaviors at low temperatures. While the long-distance super-exchange through the Fe-O–CH-O–Fe exchange path leads to a canted antiferromagnetic ordering at TN～ 19 K, a second transition of magnetic blocking develops at TB～ 9 K. The stair-shaped magnetization hysteresis loops below TBresemble the behaviors of resonant quantum tunneling of magnetization in single-molecular quantum magnets. Moreover, the magnetic relaxation also exhibits several features of resonant quantum relaxation, such as the exponential law with a single characteristic relaxation time, and the nonmonotonic dependence of relaxation rate on the applied magnetic field with a much faster relaxation around the resonant fields. The origin of quantum tunneling behaviors in the [(CH3)2NH2]Fe(HCOO)3metal–organic framework is discussed in terms of magnetic phase separation due to the modification of hydrogen bonding on the long-distance super-exchange interaction.     

Spin-flip relaxation in a two-electron quantum dot with spin-phonon coupling

We study the spin-flip process from the first excited state to the ground state due to the spin-phonon coupling in a two-electron quantum dot in the presence of a magnetic field. We give several possible relaxation channels before and after the crossing of the Zeeman sublevels. Our results show that the Coulomb interactions between the electrons of different channels play quite different roles and thus inducing different spin relaxation behaviors.     

Crossover between thermally assisted and pure quantum tunneling in molecular magnet Mn12-acetate

The crossover between thermally assisted and pure quantum tunneling has been studied in single crystals of high spin (S = 10) uniaxial molecular magnet Mn12 using micro-Hall-effect magnetometry. Magnetic hysteresis and relaxation experiments have been used to investigate the energy levels that determine the magnetization reversal as a function of magnetic field and temperature. These experiments demonstrate that the crossover occurs in a narrow ( approximately 0. 1 K) or broad ( approximately 1 K) temperature interval depending on the magnitude of the field transverse to the anisotropy axis.     

Resonant tunnelling of the magnetization in molecular crystal of [（Mn1-xCrx）12O12 （CH3COO）16（H2O）4]·2CH3COOH·4H2O（x=0,0.03,0.04,0.05）

The quantum tunnelling of magnetization （QTM） in single crystals of the single molecule magnet （Mn1-xCrx）12- Ac （x=0, 0.03, 0.04, 0.05） has been investigated. In comparison with its parent Mnl2-Ac, a greater rate of magnetization relaxation and a lower effective potential-energy barrier have been observed in Cr-doping samples. This modulation of QTM due to the Cr-doping could be attributed to the small change of Sz due to the smaller spin of Cr itself and additional intrinsic but distributed transverse and longitudinal anisotropy raised by a subtle change of the local environment in the magnetic Mn12 core.     

Negatively charged excitons in semimagnetic CdSe/ZnSe/ZnMnSe quantum dots

Low-temperature (T = 1.6 K) photoluminescence (PL) of individual CdSe/ZnSe/ZnMnSe quantum dots (QDs) with different magnitudes of the sp-d exchange interaction between the magnetic impurity ions and charge carriers has been studied in a magnetic field up to 12 T applied in the Faraday and Voigt geometry. The magnitude of the interaction was controlled by changing the fraction (η_{e, h}) of the squared wave function of charge carriers in the semimagnetic barrier by means of variation of the nonmagnetic (ZnSe) layer thickness. It is established that the sp-d exchange interaction leads to a change in the sign of the effective hole g factor even for η_{e, h} ～ 5%, while further increase in the interaction magnitude is accompanied by a rapid growth in the magnitude of spin splitting for both electrons and holes. The quantum yield of PL exhibits a significant decrease due to nonradiative Auger recombination with the excitation of Mn ions only for η_{e, h} ～ 12%, while the rate of the holes spin relaxation starts growing only for still higher η_{e, h} values. In a strong magnetic field perpendicular to the sample plane, the alignment of Mn spins leads to suppression of the Auger recombination only in the excited spin state. For a small rate of the hole spin relaxation, this leads to a rather unusual result: the emission from an excited trion state predominates in strong magnetic fields.     

Magnetic long-range order induced by quantum relaxation in single-molecule magnets

Can magnetic interactions between single-molecule magnets (SMMs) in a crystal establish long-range magnetic order at low temperatures deep in the quantum regime, where the only electron spin fluctuations are due to incoherent magnetic quantum tunneling (MQT)? Put inversely: can MQT provide the temperature dependent fluctuations needed to destroy the ordered state above some finite T(c), although it should basically itself be a T-independent process? Our experiments on two novel Mn4 SMMs provide a positive answer to the above, showing at the same time that MQT in the SMMs has to involve spin-lattice coupling at a relaxation rate equaling that predicted and observed recently for nuclear-spin-mediated quantum relaxation.     

Electron-LO-phonon interaction in wurtzite GaN quantum wells under a magnetic field

We calculate the electron-LO-phonon relaxation rates in wurtzite GaN quantum wells in the presence of a magnetic field parallel to the growth direction. Using the dielectric continuum model (DCM), we are able to include contributions from both the interface and the quasi-confined phonon modes. The relaxation rate expression takes the phonon dispersion into account, and is applicable to all phonon modes. We find that the relaxation rates show strong oscillations as a function of the applied magnetic field. In relatively wide (8 nm) quantum wells, the inclusion of interface phonon mode decreases this oscillation amplitude. But in thin wells (5 nm), the interface phonon mode is of the same importance as the quasi-confined mode, and it strongly modifies the oscillation behavior.     

Phonon-assisted tunneling in the quantum regime of Mn12 acetate

Longitudinal or transverse magnetic fields applied on a crystal of Mn12 acetate allows one to observe independent tunnel transitions between m = -S+p and m = S-n-p ( n = 6-10, p = 0-2 in longitudinal field and n = p = 0 in transverse field). We observe a smooth transition (in longitudinal) from coherent ground-state to thermally activated tunneling. Furthermore, two ground-state relaxation regimes show a crossover between quantum spin relaxation far from equilibrium and near equilibrium, when the environment destroys multimolecule correlations. Finally, we stress that the complete Hamiltonian of Mn12 should contain odd spin operators of low order.     

Low frequency magnetic response in antiferromagnetically coupled Fe/Cr multilayers

The magnetic field and temperature dependence of the low frequency magnetic response of antiferromagnetically coupled Fe/Cr(100) multilayers has been studied between +/-500 Oe, from 2 to 300 K. At T = 2 K the losses exhibit an unusually strong frequency dependence which can be described within a single relaxation time scheme. This relaxation time proves to be strongly field dependent. These phenomena are specific for epitaxial multilayers with large magnetoresistance. The behavior of the relaxation time at low temperatures might be related to some quantum tunneling processes.     

Anisotropy of spin splitting and spin relaxation in lateral quantum dots

Inelastic spin relaxation and spin splitting epsilon(s) in lateral quantum dots are studied in the regime of strong in-plane magnetic field. Because of both the g-factor energy dependence and spin-orbit coupling, epsilon(s) demonstrates a substantial nonlinear magnetic field dependence similar to that observed by Hanson et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 196802 (2003)]. It also varies with the in-plane orientation of the magnetic field due to crystalline anisotropy of the spin-orbit coupling. The spin relaxation rate is also anisotropic, the anisotropy increasing with the field. When the magnetic length is less than the "thickness" of the GaAs dot, the relaxation can be an order of magnitude faster for B ||[100] than for B || [110].     

Photo-excitation from dia- to ferri-magnetism in a Rb-Co-hexacyanoferrate Prussian blue analogue

We studied the photo-excitation process, the relaxation of the photo-excited state towards the stable state, and the photo-induced magnetic properties of the Prussian blue analogue Rb_0.52Co [Fe(CN)₆]_0.84, 2.3 H₂O. Magnetic, M?ssbauer and reflectivity measurements have been performed during and after illumination. The efficiency of the photo-excitation device is maximum at nm. The process, however, is severely hindered by bulk absorption of the light; it is rapidly completed at the surface of the sample and then proceeds slowly in the bulk. Under the effect of photo-excitation the system turns from a dia- to a ferri- magnet, with a value K, indicative of the transformation of the material due to the following optical electron transfer: Thermal relaxation towards the stable electronic state is observed in the 95-110 K temperature interval, obeying a self-accelerated kinetics. At low temperature, a weak, non-exponential, relaxation is detected. These features are discussed in terms of co-operative effects in the frontal process of photo- excitation. The peculiarities of a photo-excited state created below the magnetic ordering temperature are discussed. A metastable magnetic state has been observed in low fields, denoted “Raw Photo-Induced State" (RPI), with a magnetization curve in-between the field-cooled and zero-field-cooled curves. Received 12 March 1999 and Received in final form 11 December 1999     

Quantum limit cyclotron resonance in p-GaAs

Electron scattering by neutral acceptors has been studied through far infrared (λ=172 μm) cyclotron resonance on p-GaAs at 4.2 K. It is found that (1) The inverse relaxation time is considerably smaller in the quantum limit than that predicted by D.C. transport theory in the absence of a magnetic field. (2) The same increase linearly with neutral acceptor concentration. (3) The electron momentum transfer cross section by neutral acceptor is by more than an order of magnitude smaller than that by neutral donor even in the quantum limit.     

Anomalous temperature evolution of the internal magnetic field distribution in the charge-ordered triangular antiferromagnet AgNiO2

Zero-field muon-spin relaxation measurements of the frustrated triangular quantum magnet AgNiO2 are consistent with a model of charge disproportionation that has been advanced to explain the structural and magnetic properties of this compound. Below an ordering temperature of TN=19.9(2) K we observe six distinct muon precession frequencies, due to the magnetic order, which can be accounted for with a model describing the probable muon sites. The precession frequencies show an unusual temperature evolution which is suggestive of the separate evolution of two opposing magnetic sublattices.