Elliptically polarized absorption spectroscopy and observation of spin coherence in intrinsic GaAs

Abstract

The elliptically polarized absorption spectroscopy is further developed to observe electron spin coherence dynamics in an intrinsic bulk GaAs in Voigt geometry. Absorption saturation quantum beats are observed and explained as spin-precession-dependent state filling. An analytical model is developed quantitatively to describe the quantum beats and used to fit experimental data to retrieve spin coherence lifetime. Comparing to the reported data reveals that the spin coherence dynamics of the real and imaginary of a complex refractive index is much different.