Quantum dynamics of nuclear spins and spin relaxation in organic semiconductors

Abstract

We investigate the role of the nuclear spin quantum dynamics in hyperfine-induced spin relaxation of hopping carriers in organic semiconductors. The fast hopping regime with a small carrier spin precession during a waiting time between hops is typical for organic semiconductors possessing long spin coherence times. We consider this regime and focus on a carrier random walk diffusion in one dimension, where the effect of the nuclear spin dynamics is expected to be the strongest. Exact numerical simulations of spin systems with up to 25 nuclear spins are performed using the Suzuki-Trotter decomposition of evolution operator. Larger nuclear spin systems are modeled utilizing the spin-coherent state $P$-representation approach developed earlier. We find that the nuclear spin dynamics strongly influences the carrier spin relaxation at long times. If the random walk is restricted to a small area, it leads to the quenching of carrier spin polarization at a non-zero value at long times. If the random walk is unrestricted, the carrier spin polarization acquires a long-time tail, decaying as $ 1/\sqrt{t}$. Based on the numerical results, we devise a simple formula describing the effect quantitatively.