Resonant optical control of the electrically-induced spin polarization by periodic excitation

Abstract

We show that the electron spin polarization generated by an electrical current may have its direction controlled and magnitude amplified by periodic optical excitation. The electrical and optical spin control methods were combined and implemented in a two-dimensional electron gas. By Kerr rotation in an external transverse magnetic field, we demonstrate unexpected long-lived coherent spin oscillations of the current-induced signal in a system with large spin-orbit interaction. Using a single linearly polarized pulse for spin manipulation and detection, we found a strong dependence on the pulse optical power and sample temperature indicating the relevance of the hole spin in the electron spin initialization. The signal was mapped in a Hall bar as function of the position relative to the injection contact. Finally, the presence of an in-plane spin polarization was directly verified by rotating the experimental geometry.

5 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Current induced electron spin polarization in strained semiconductors
• Spin coherence of a two-dimensional electron gas induced by resonant excitation of trions and excitons in CdTe/(Cd,Mg)Te quantum wells
• Two-dimensional imaging of the spin-orbit effective magnetic field
• All-electrical time-resolved spin generation and spin manipulation in n-InGaAs
• Two-dimensional optical control of electron spin orientation by linearly polarized light in InGaAs

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Macroscopic transverse drift of long current-induced spin coherence in two-dimensional electron gases
• Gate control of the spin mobility through the modification of the spin-orbit interaction in two-dimensional systems
• Long-lived nanosecond spin coherence in high-mobility 2DEGs confined in double and triple quantum wells
• Large anisotropic spin relaxation time of exciton bound to donor states in triple quantum wells
• Electrical control of spin relaxation anisotropy during drift transport in a two-dimensional electron gas
• Insensitivity of spin dynamics to the orbital angular momentum transferred from twisted light to extended semiconductors
• Macroscopic transport of a current-induced spin polarization
• Resonant spin amplification meets electron spin resonance in $n$-GaAs
• Experimental analysis of the spin-orbit coupling dependence on the drift velocity of a spin packet
• Optically-detected long-lived spin coherence in multilayer systems: Double and triple quantum wells