Rashba conduction band spin-splitting for asymmetric quantum well potentials

Eldridge, P. S., Leyland, W. J. H., Mar, J. D., Lagoudakis, P. G., Winkler, R., Karimov, O. Z., Henini, M., Taylor, D., Phillips, R. T. and Harley, R. T. (2010) Rashba conduction band spin-splitting for asymmetric quantum well potentials. Journal of Superconductivity and Novel Magnetism, 23 (1), 157-159. (doi:10.1007/s10948-009-0546-x).

Abstract

Asymmetric quantum well potentials are expected to produce a conduction band spin-splitting which contributes to Dyakonov–Perel (Sov. Phys. Solid State 13:3023, 1971) spin relaxation. Much experimental work has focused on the effect of an electric field on spin dynamics (Karimov et al., in Phys. Rev. Lett. 91:246601, 2003) and little on asymmetry from alloy engineering. By combining time-resolved Kerr rotation measurements with transient spin grating measurements in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells we have compared the conduction band spin-splitting resulting from asymmetric alloy engineering with that from applied electric field. The latter is easily measurable, whilst the former is no greater than that in symmetric wells. These results are consistent with an envelope function approximation model that considers the potential profile in both the conduction and the valence bands (Winkler, in Springer Tracts in Modern Physics, vol. 191, 2003).

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Contributors

Author: P. G. Lagoudakis

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