Electric-Field-Effect Spin Switching with an Enhanced Number of Highly Polarized Electron and Photon Spins Using p-Doped Semiconductor Quantum Dots.

Abstract

Electric-field-effect spin switching with an enhanced number of highly polarized electron and photon spins has been demonstrated using p-doped semiconductor quantum dots (QDs). Remote p-doping in InGaAs QDs tunnel-coupled with an InGaAs quantum well (QW) significantly increased the circularly polarized, thus electron-spin-polarized, photoluminescence intensity, depending on the electric-field-induced electron spin injection from the QW as a spin reservoir into the QDs. The spin polarity and polarization degree during this spin injection can be controlled by the direction and the strength of the electric field, where the spin direction can be reversed by excess electron spin injection into the QDs via spin scattering at the QD excited states. We found that the maximum degrees of both parallel and antiparallel spin polarization to the initial spin direction in the QW can be enhanced by p-doping. The doped holes without spin polarization can effectively contribute to this electric-field-effect spin switching after the initial electron spin injection selectively removes the parallel hole spins. The optimized p-doping induces fast spin reversals at the QD excited states with a moderate electric-field application, resulting in an efficient electric-field-driven antiparallel spin injection into the QD ground state. Further excess hole doping prevents this efficient spin reversal due to multiple electron–hole spin scattering, in addition to a spin-state filling effect at the QD excited states, during the spin injection from the QW into the QDs.