English

Spin relaxation near a ferromagnetic transition

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2015-09-29 v1 Materials Science

Abstract

We study spin relaxation in dilute magnetic semiconductors near a ferromagnetic transition, where spin fluctuations become strong. An enhancement in the scattering rate of itinerant carriers from the spin fluctuations of localized impurities leads to a change in the dominant spin relaxation mechanism from Dyakonov-Perel to spin flips in scattering. On the ferromagnetic side of the transition, we show that due to the presence of two magnetic components -- the itinerant carriers and the magnetic impurities -- with different gyromagnetic ratios, the relaxation rate of the total magnetization can be quite different from the relaxation rate of the spin. Following a disturbance of the equilibrium magnetization, the spin is initially redistributed between the two components to restore the equilibrium magnetization. It is only on a longer time scale, controlled by the spin-orbit interaction, that the total spin itself relaxes to its equilibrium state.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1509.07926,
  title  = {Spin relaxation near a ferromagnetic transition},
  author = {Matthew D. Mower and G. Vignale},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1509.07926},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

12 pages, 5 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-22T11:05:59.354Z