We investigate the intrinsic spin relaxation of conduction electrons in germanium due to electron-phonon scattering. We derive intravalley and intervalley spin-flip matrix elements for a general spin orientation and quantify the resulting anisotropy in spin relaxation. The form of the intravalley spin-flip matrix element is derived from the eigenstates of a compact spin-dependent k⋅p Hamiltonian in the vicinity of the L point (where thermal electrons are populated in Ge). Spin lifetimes from analytical integrations of the intravalley and intervalley matrix elements show excellent agreement with independent results from elaborate numerical methods.
@article{arxiv.1205.1829,
title = {Intrinsic Spin Lifetime of Conduction Electrons in Germanium},
author = {Pengke Li and Yang Song and Hanan Dery},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1205.1829},
year = {2013}
}