Non-diffusive Spin Dynamics in a Two-dimensional Electron Gas

Download or read book Non-diffusive Spin Dynamics in a Two-dimensional Electron Gas written by and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We describe measurements of spin dynamics in the two-dimensional electron gas in GaAs/GaAlAs quantum wells. Optical techniques, including transient spin-grating spectroscopy, are used to probe the relaxation rates of spin polarization waves in the wavevector range from zero to 6 x 104 cm−1. We find that the spin polarization lifetime is maximal at nonzero wavevector, in contrast with expectation based on ordinary spin diffusion, but in quantitative agreement with recent theories that treat diffusion in the presence of spin-orbit coupling.