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 6×104 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.
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0610054,
title = {Non-diffusive spin dynamics in a two-dimensional electron gas},
author = {C. P. Weber and J. Orenstein and B. Andrei Bernevig and Shou-Cheng Zhang and Jason Stephens and D. D. Awschalom},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0610054},
year = {2009}
}