Abstract
We study spin relaxation in n-type bulk GaAs, due to the Dyakonov–Perel mechanism, using ensemble Monte Carlo methods. Our results confirm that spin relaxation time increases with the electronic density in the regime of moderate electronic concentrations and high temperature. We show that the electron-electron scattering in the non-degenerate regime significantly slows down spin relaxation. This result supports predictions by Glazov and Ivchenko. Most importantly, our findings highlight the importance of many-body interactions for spin dynamics: we show that only by properly taking into account electron-electron interactions within the simulations, results for the spin relaxation time—with respect to both electron density and temperature—will reach good quantitative agreement with corresponding experimental data. Our calculations contain no fitting parameters.
Highlights
Spin coherence in semiconductors has been the focus of both theoretically [1,2,3] and experimentally [4,5] research
The n-type bulk GaAs semiconductor has been shown to be a suitable material for spintronics, as it provides the easy availability of high-quality samples and the possibility of using time-resolved optical techniques for exciting and detecting spin-polarized electrons [8]
We plot the experimental results obtained by Oertel et al
Summary
Spin coherence in semiconductors has been the focus of both theoretically [1,2,3] and experimentally [4,5] research. The spin relaxation due to the DP mechanism follows from the energy splitting, for any non-zero value of the wavevector, of the spin-up and spin-down states This is present in solids that lack bulk inversion symmetry, like GaAs [9]. We will use EMC to estimate the effect of electron-electron scattering on the spin relaxation time (SRT) and present results for n-type bulk GaAs at relatively high temperatures (280 ≤ T ≤ 400 K) and low-to-moderate doping concentrations (ni = 1016 to 2.5 × 1017 cm−3 ). We use the same spin-orbit coupling value, 21.9 eV Å3 , suggested in the experimental paper To our knowledge, this is the first time that EMC simulations can quantitatively reproduce spin-relaxation experimental results, and we will discuss the importance, to this aim, of properly taking into account electron-electron interactions. Our findings suggest that the prediction made for two-dimensional systems by Glazov and Ivchenko [1,2], that electron-electron scattering slows down the SRT via motional narrowing, can be extended to the three-dimensional case
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