Pure spin photocurrents

Abstract

The pure spin currents, i.e., the counterflow of particles with opposite spin orientations, can be optically injected in semiconductors. Here, we develop a phenomenological theory, which describes the polarization dependencies of spin currents excited by linearly polarized light in bulk semiconductors and quantum well structures of various symmetries. We present microscopic descriptions of the pure spin photocurrents for interband optical transitions in undoped quantum wells as well as for direct intersubband and indirect intrasubband (Drude-like) transitions in n-doped quantum well structures. We also demonstrate that pure spin currents can be generated in structures of sufficiently low symmetries by simple electron gas heating. The theoretical results are compared with recent experimental observations.

10 pages, 4 figure, to be published in a special issue of Semiconductor Science and Technology

References in corpus (17)

• Spin Hall effect
• Direct electronic measurement of the spin Hall effect
• Experimental observation of the spin-Hall effect in a two dimensional spin-orbit coupled semiconductor system
• Observation of spin Coulomb drag in a two-dimensional electron gas
• Spin Relaxation Anisotropy in Two-Dimensional Semiconductor Systems
• Pure spin current from one-photon absorption of linearly polarized light in noncentrosymmetric semiconductors
• Zero-bias spin separation
• Magneto-Gyrotropic Photogalvanic Effects in Semiconductor Quantum Wells
• Enhanced spin relaxation time due to electron-electron scattering in semiconductors
• Pure spin photocurrents in low-dimensional structures
• Resonant inversion of the circular photogalvanic effect in n-doped quantum wells
• Pure spin currents induced by spin-dependent scattering processes in SiGe quantum well structures
• Spin current injection by intersubband transitions in quantum wells
• Optical orientation of electron spins by linearly polarized light
• Spin orientation of a two-dimensional electron gas by a high-frequency electric field
• Thermal orientation of electron spins
• Spin orientation and spin currents induced by linearly polarized light

Cited by in corpus (18)

• PT-symmetry enabled spin circular photogalvanic effect in antiferromagnetic insulators
• Spin-orbit coupling effects in zinc-blende InSb and wurtzite InAs nanowires: Realistic calculations with multiband $\vec{k}\cdot \vec{p}$ method
• Switchable enhanced spin photocurrent in Rashba and cubic Dresselhaus ferroelectric semiconductors
• A comprehensive theory of second-order spin photocurrents
• Spin-polarized electric currents in diluted magnetic semiconductor heterostructures induced by terahertz and microwave radiation
• Spin polarization, dephasing and photoinduced spin diffusion in (110)-grown two-dimensional electron systems
• Detection of the anomalous velocity with sub-picosecond time resolution in semiconductor nanostructures
• Enhanced circular photogalvanic effect in HgTe quantum wells in the heavily inverted regime
• Edge absorption and pure spin current in 2D topological insulator in the Volkov-Pankratov model
• Intersubband polaritons with spin-orbit interaction
• Spin currents of exciton polaritons in a microcavity with (110)-oriented quantum well
• Role of Coulomb interaction in the valley photogalvanic effect
• Light-induced Nonlinear Spin Hall Current in Single-layer WTe${}_2$
• High-purity valley-polarized currents induced by bichromatic optical fields in two-dimensional materials
• Ultrafast magneto-photocurrents as probe of anisotropy relaxation in GaAs
• Strong electron spin-Hall effect by a coherent optical potential
• Electric and spin-valley currents induced by structured light in 2D Dirac materials
• Excitation of spin density and current by coherent light pulses in QWs