Quantum theory of spin dynamics of exciton-polaritons in microcavities

We present the quantum theory of momentum and spin relaxation of exciton-polaritons in microcavities. We show that giant longitudinal-transverse splitting of the polaritons mixes their spin states, which results in beats between right- and left-circularly polarized photoluminescence of microcavities, as was recently experimentally observed [Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 077402 (2002)]]. This effect is strongly sensitive to the bosonic stimulation of polariton scattering.     

Theory of Faraday rotation beats in quantum wells with large spin splitting

Spin dynamics of conduction electrons in a quantum well with a zinc blende structure is considered theoretically for the case where spin splitting exceeds the collisional broadening of energy levels. It is shown that, under certain conditions, the spin density component normal to the quantum well plane may oscillate with time even in the absence of an external magnetic field. These oscillations can be excited and detected using nonlinear two-pulse spectroscopy. Contrary to the case of small spin splitting, the external transverse magnetic field strongly affects spin dynamics in this regime.     

Polariton spin beats in semiconductor quantum well microcavities

Time-resolved Kerr (Faraday) rotation experiments allow for the observation of polariton spin beats in both InGaAs and CdMnTe quantum well (QW) microcavities. The existence of these beats is an unambiguous manifestation of the coherent energy exchange between exciton and photon components of polariton states created by a circularly polarized and spectrally wide femtosecond laser pulse. The polariton states are also shown to be split into a linearly polarized doublet. This splitting is responsible for the polarization transfer between linearly and circularly polarized states. In a highest-quality sample, the resulting spin dynamics could be detected.     

Nuclear tuning and detuning of the electron spin resonance in a quantum dot: theoretical consideration

We study nuclear spin dynamics in a quantum dot close to the conditions of electron spin resonance. We show that at a small frequency mismatch, the nuclear field detunes the resonance. Remarkably, at larger frequency mismatch, its effect is opposite: The nuclear system is bistable, and in one of the stable states, the field accurately tunes the electron spin splitting to resonance. In this state, the nuclear field fluctuations are strongly suppressed, and nuclear spin relaxation is accelerated.     

The dependence of the quantum oscillation amplitude on spin splitting

The electron density of states of a semiconductor in magnetic field exhibits an oscillatory behaviour. The amplitude of these oscillations is studied theoretically as a function of the electron spin splitting. The amplitude is shown to be strongly reduced when the spin splitting is equal to the half of the orbital splitting ?ω, provided that the collision broadening of the electronic levels is large enough. This fact should be reflected in a similar reduction of the amplitude of various quantum oscillatory phenomena, e.g. Shubnikov-de Haas effect.     

Spin-orbit interaction in coupled quantum wells

We theoretically investigate the spin-orbit interaction in GaAs/AlxGa1 x As coupled quantum wells. We consider the contribution of the interface-related Rashba term as well as the linear and cubic Dresselhaus terms to the spin splitting. For the coupled quantum wells which bear an inherent structure inversion asymmetry, the same probability density distribution of electrons in the two step quantum wells results in a large spin splitting from the interface term. If the widths of the two step quantum wells are different, the electron probability density in the wider step quantum well is considerably higher than that in the narrower one, resulting in the decrease of the spin splitting from the interface term. The results also show that the spin splitting of the coupled quantum well is not significantly larger than that of a step quantum well.     

Effect of electron-electron interaction on spin relaxation of charge carriers in semiconductors

An analysis of spin dynamics is presented for semiconductor systems without inversion symmetry that exhibit spin splitting. It is shown that electron-electron interaction reduces the rate of the Dyakonov-Perel (precession) mechanism of spin relaxation both via spin mixing in the momentum space and via the Hartree-Fock exchange interaction in spin-polarized electron gas. The change in the Hartree-Fock contribution with increasing nonequilibrium spin polarization is analyzed. Theoretical predictions are compared with experimental results on spin dynamics in GaAs/AlGaAs-based quantum-well structures. The effect of electron-electron collisions is examined not only for two-dimensional electron gas in a quantum well, but also for electron gas in a bulk semiconductor and a quantum wire.     

Enhancement of valley splitting in (100) Si MOSFETs at high magnetic fields

We report the density and magnetic field dependence of the valley splitting of two-dimensional electrons in (100) Si metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors, as determined via activation measurements in the quantum Hall regime. We find that the valley activation gap can be greatly enhanced at high magnetic fields as compared to the bare valley splitting. The observation of strong dependence of the valley activation gap on orbital Landau level occupancy and similar behavior of nearby spin gaps suggest that electron–electron interactions play a large role in the observed enhancement.     

Energy relaxation in the spin-polarized disordered electron liquid

Energy relaxation is studied in the spin-polarized disordered electron systems in the diffusive regime. We derive a quantum kinetic equation in which the kernel of the electron-electron collision integral explicitly depends on the electron magnetization. As a consequence, the inelastic scattering rate has a nonmonotonic dependence on the spin polarization of the system.     

自旋对磁量子反点能谱和磁电导的影响

利用分区求解单粒子薛定谔方程的方法,研究了电子自旋对磁量子反点中电子能级和磁电导的影响.结果表明,电子自旋与非均匀磁场的相互作用使电子能级发生劈裂,其特征与均匀磁场中电子自旋引起的劈裂显著不同,磁量子反点中能级的劈裂与角动量量子数密切相关.电子共振隧穿到磁边缘态,导致了磁电导随磁场的非周期性振荡.考虑电子自旋与不考虑电子自旋相比,磁电导谱中谷的数目增多且深度减小. 关键词：     

From spin flip excitations to the spin susceptibility enhancement of a two-dimensional electron gas

The g-factor enhancement of the spin-polarized two-dimensional electron gas was measured directly over a wide range of spin polarizations, using spin flip resonant Raman scattering spectroscopy on two-dimensional electron gases embedded in Cd(1-x)Mn(x)Te semimagnetic quantum wells. At zero Raman transferred momentum, the single-particle spin flip excitation, energy Z*, coexists in the Raman spectrum with the spin flip wave of energy Z, the bare giant Zeeman splitting. We compare the measured g-factor enhancement with recent spin-susceptibility enhancement theories and deduce the spin-polarization dependence of the mass renormalization.     

Coherent spin precession of electrons and excitons in charge tunable InP quantum dots

Coherent spin precession of electrons and excitons is observed in charge tunable InP quantum dots under the transverse magnetic field by means of time-resolved Kerr rotation. In a quantum dot doped by one electron, spin precession of the doped electron in the quantum dot starts out of phase with spin precession of the doped electrons in a GaAs substrate just after a trion is formed and persists for more than 2 ns even after the trion recombines. Simultaneously spin precession of a trion (hole) starts. Observation of spin precession of both a doped electron and a trion (hole) confirms creating coherent superposition of an electron and a trion as the initialization process of spin of doped electrons in quantum dots. In a neutral quantum dot, the exciton spin precession starts out of phase with spin precession of the doped electrons in a GaAs substrate and the precession frequency does not converge to 0 at the zero field limit. It contains the electron–hole exchange interaction and corresponds to the splitting between bright and dark excitons under the transverse magnetic field.     

Vanishing and emerging of absorption quantum beats from electron spin coherence in GaAs quantum wells

We report experimental studies of absorption quantum beats induced by electron spin coherence in GaAs quantum wells. Absorption quantum beats occur for strongly localized excitons, but nearly vanish for mobile excitons in the third order nonlinear optical response. Pronounced quantum beats for mobile excitons emerge in an unusual fifth order process. These results, along with a qualitative analysis based on the use of N-exciton eigenstates, elucidate how the manifestation of electron spin coherence in the excitonic nonlinear optical response can differ fundamentally from that in an atomic system.     

Electric field control of spin splitting in III–V semiconductor quantum dots without magnetic field

We provide an alternative means of electric field control for spin manipulation in the absence of magnetic fields by transporting quantum dots adiabatically in the plane of two-dimensional electron gas. We show that the spin splitting energy of moving quantum dots is possible due to the presence of quasi-Hamiltonian that might be implemented to make the next generation spintronic devices of post CMOS technology. Such spin splitting energy is highly dependent on the material properties of semiconductor. It turns out that this energy is in the range of meV and can be further enhanced with increasing pulse frequency. In particular, we show that quantum oscillations in phonon mediated spin-flip behaviors can be observed. We also confirm that no oscillations in spin-flip behaviors can be observed for the pure Rashba or pure Dresselhaus cases.     

Observation of coherent oscillations in a single electron spin

Rabi nutations and Hahn echo modulation of a single electron spin in a single defect center have been observed. The coherent evolution of the spin quantum state is followed via optical detection of the spin state. Coherence times up to several microseconds at room temperature have been measured. Optical excitation of the spin states leads to decoherence. Quantum beats between electron spin transitions in a single spin Hahn echo experiment are observed. A closer analysis reveals that beats also result from the hyperfine coupling of the electron spin to a single 14N nuclear spin. The results are analyzed in terms of a density matrix approach of an electron spin interacting with two oscillating fields.     

Spin-filtered edge states and quantum Hall effect in graphene

Electron edge states in graphene in the quantum Hall effect regime can carry both charge and spin. We show that spin splitting of the zeroth Landau level gives rise to counterpropagating modes with opposite spin polarization. These chiral spin modes lead to a rich variety of spin current states, depending on the spin-flip rate. A method to control the latter locally is proposed. We estimate Zeeman spin splitting enhanced by exchange, and obtain a spin gap of a few hundred Kelvin.     

Vacuum Rabi Splitting and Kerr Effect of a Hybrid Spin–Magnon–Photon System

The vacuum Rabi splitting and Kerr effect are investigated theoretically in a hybrid spin–magnon–photon system, where the nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond driven by two light fields is coupled to a spherical micromagnet embedded in a superconducting coplanar waveguide resonator. The results indicate that the phenomenon of the Mollow triplet and vacuum Rabi splitting can appear by controlling the spin–magnon coupling and magnon–photon coupling. It is shown that the probe absorption spectrum can be adjusted effectively via the pump frequency detuning. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the optical Kerr effect can be tuned by changing the Rabi frequency. This work may provide a possibility for the applications in quantum information processing and quantum sensing of magnetic signal.     

Spin eigen-states of Dirac equation for quasi-two-dimensional electrons

Dirac equation for electrons in a potential created by quantum well is solved and the three sets of the eigen-functions are obtained. In each set the wavefunction is at the same time the eigen-function of one of the three spin operators, which do not commute with each other, but do commute with the Dirac Hamiltonian. This means that the eigen-functions of Dirac equation describe three independent spin eigen-states. The energy spectrum of electrons confined by the rectangular quantum well is calculated for each of these spin states at the values of energies relevant for solid state physics. It is shown that the standard Rashba spin splitting takes place in one of such states only. In another one, 2D electron subbands remain spin degenerate, and for the third one the spin splitting is anisotropic for different directions of 2D wave vector.     

Suppression of spin beats in magneto-oscillation phenomena in two-dimensional electron gas

Theory of magneto-oscillation phenomena has been developed for two-dimensional electron systems with linear-in-k spin splitting. Both Dresselhaus and Rashba contributions are taken into account. It has been shown that the pattern of the magneto-oscillations depends drastically on the ratio between the above terms. The presence of only one type of the k-linear terms gives rise to the beats, i.e. two close harmonics corresponding to the spin-split subbands. However, if the strengths of both contributions are comparable, the third (central) harmonic appears in the spectrum of the magneto-oscillations. For equal strengths of the contributions, only the central harmonic survives, and the oscillations occur at a single frequency, although the k-linear terms remain in the Hamiltonian. Such suppression of the spin beats is studied in detail by the example of the Shubnikov-de Haas effect.     

Optical orientation by linearly polarized light in intersubband quantum-well transitions

The absorption of linearly polarized light in low-dimensional semiconductor structures is investigated. It is shown that the absorption under consideration can give rise to spin orientation of free carriers. A theory of this optical orientation by linearly polarized light is developed for resonant intersubband optical transitions in n-type quantum wells. It is demonstrated that, in the vicinity of the resonance, the optical orientation undergoes spectral inversion, namely, the electron spin orientation reverses sign with increasing frequency. This behavior can be accounted for by the spin-orbit subband splitting, which is linear in the wave vector, and by the energy and quasi-momentum conservation laws.