We investigate spin relaxation dynamics of interlayer excitons in a MoSe2/MoS2 heterostructure induced by the Rashba effect. In such a system, Rashba interactions arise from an out-of-plane electric field due to photo-generated interlayer excitons inducing a phonon-assisted intravalley spin relaxation. We develop a theoretical description based on a microscopic approach to quantify the magnitude of Rashba interactions and test these predictions via time-resolved Kerr rotation measurements. In agreement with the calculations, we find that the Rashba-induced intravalley spin mixing becomes the dominating spin relaxation channel above T = 50 K. Our work identifies a previously unexplored spin-depolarization channel in heterostructures which can be used for ultrafast spin manipulation.
@article{arxiv.2406.04454,
title = {Ultrafast Optical Control of Rashba Interactions in a TMDC Heterostructure},
author = {Henry Mittenzwey and Abhijeet Kumar and Raghav Dhingra and Kenji Watanabe and Takashi Taniguchi and Cornelius Gahl and Kirill I. Bolotin and Malte Selig and Andreas Knorr},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2406.04454},
year = {2024}
}