Tunneling into Ferromagnetic Quantum Hall States: Observation of a Spin Bottleneck

Abstract

We explore the characteristics of equilibrium tunneling of electrons from a 3D electrode into a high mobility 2D electron system. For most 2D Landau level filling factors, we find that tunneling can be characterized by a single, well-defined tunneling rate. However, for spin-polarized quantum Hall states (nu = 1, 3 and 1/3) tunneling occurs at two distinct rates that differ by up to 2 orders of magnitude. The dependence of the two rates on temperature and tunnel barrier thickness suggests that slow in-plane spin relaxation creates a bottleneck for tunneling of electrons.

5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to PRL

References in corpus (2)

• Ultraslow Electron Spin Dynamics in GaAs Quantum Wells Probed by Optically Pumped NMR
• Spin Bottlenecks in the Quantum Hall Regim

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Spintronics: Fundamentals and applications
• Temperature dependent asymmetry of the nonlocal spin-injection resistance: evidence for spin non-conserving interface scattering
• Tunneling measurements of the coulomb pseudogap in a two-dimensional electron system in a quantizing magnetic field
• Spin Bottlenecks in the Quantum Hall Regim
• Spintronic Spin Accumulation and Thermodynamics
• Pseudo-gap and spin polarization in a two-dimensional electron gas