Two-dimensional optical control of electron spin orientation by linearly polarized light in InGaAs

Abstract

Optical absorption of circularly polarized light is well known to yield an electron spin polarization in direct band gap semiconductors. We demonstrate that electron spins can even be generated with high efficiency by absorption of linearly polarized light in InGaAs. By changing the incident linear polarization direction we can selectively excite spins both in polar and transverse directions. These directions can be identified by the phase during spin precession using time-resolved Faraday rotation. We show that the spin orientations do not depend on the crystal axes suggesting an extrinsic excitation mechanism.

4 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (6)

• Current induced electron spin polarization in strained semiconductors
• Measurement of Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit magnetic fields
• Coherent transfer of light polarization to electron spins in a semiconductor
• Magneto-gyrotropic effects in semiconductor quantum wells (review)
• Ultrafast extrinsic spin-Hall currents
• Anisotropic Electron Spin Lifetime in (In,Ga)As/GaAs (110) Quantum Wells

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Electron spin and the origin of Bio-homochirality II. Prebiotic inorganic-organic reaction model