Magneto-gyrotropic photogalvanic effect and spin dephasing in (110)-grown GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well structures

Abstract

We report on the magneto-gyrotropic photogalvanic effect (MPGE) in n-doped (110)-grown GaAs/AlGaAs quantum-well (QW) structures caused by free-carrier absorption of terahertz radiation in the presence of a magnetic field. The photocurrent behavior upon variation of the radiation polarization state, magnetic field orientation and temperature is studied. The developed theory of MPGE describes well all experimental results. It is demonstrated that the structure inversion asymmetry can be controllably tuned to zero by variation of the delta-doping layer positions. For the in-plane magnetic field the photocurrent is only observed in asymmetric structures but vanishes in symmetrically doped QWs. Applying time-resolved Kerr rotation and polarized luminescence we investigate the spin relaxation in QWs for various excitation levels. Our data confirm that in symmetrically doped QWs the spin relaxation time is maximal, therefore, these structures set the upper limit of spin dephasing in GaAs/AlGaAs QWs.

11 pages, 12 figures

References in corpus (8)

• Rashba and Dresselhaus Spin-Splittings in Semiconductor Quantum Wells Measured by Spin Photocurrents
• Spin noise spectroscopy in GaAs (110) quantum wells: Access to intrinsic spin lifetimes and equilibrium electron dynamics
• Magneto-gyrotropic effects in semiconductor quantum wells (review)
• Effect of initial spin polarization on spin dephasing and electron g factor in a high-mobility two-dimensional electron system
• Spin photocurrents and circular photon drag effect in (110)-grown quantum well structures
• Symmetry and spin dephasing in (110)-grown quantum wells
• Spin relaxation due to the Bir-Aronov-Pikus mechanism in intrinsic and $p$-type GaAs quantum wells from a fully microscopic approach
• Electron scattering in quantum wells subjected to an in-plane magnetic field

Cited by in corpus (14)

• Spin dynamics in semiconductors
• Direct current driven by ac electric field in quantum wells
• Spin dephasing and photoinduced spin diffusion in high-mobility 110-grown GaAs-AlGaAs two-dimensional electron systems
• High-frequency nonlinear transport and photogalvanic effects in two-dimensional topological insulators
• Decoherence-assisted initialization of a resident hole spin polarization in a two-dimensional hole gas
• Cyclotron effect on coherent spin precession of two-dimensional electrons
• Spin relaxation due to random Rashba spin-orbit coupling in GaAs (110) quantum wells
• Effect of Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling on spin dephasing in asymmetric and macroscopically symmetric (110)-grown quantum wells
• A virtual intersubband spin-flip spin-orbit coupling induced spin relaxation in GaAs (110) quantum wells
• Terahertz radiation-induced conductivity, Kerr and Faraday angles, and spin textures in a two-dimensional electron gas with spin-orbit coupling subjected to a high magnetic field and periodic potential
• Spin injection via (110)-grown semiconductor barriers
• Nonlinear intensity dependence of ratchet currents induced by terahertz laser radiation in bilayer graphene with asymmetric periodic grating gates
• THz ratchet effect in HgTe interdigitated structures
• Terahertz spin ratchet effect in magnetic metamaterials