Experimental and theoretical studies of all-optical spin pump and probe of resident electrons in CdTe/(Cd,Mg)Te semiconductor quantum wells are reported. A two-color Hanle-MOKE technique (based on continuous-wave excitation) and time-resolved Kerr rotation in the regime of resonant spin amplification (based on pulsed excitation) provide a complementary measure of electron spin relaxation time. Influence of electron localization on long-lived spin coherence is examined by means of spectral and temperature dependencies. Various scenarios of spin polarization generation (via the trion and exciton states) are analyzed and difference between continuous-wave and pulsed excitations is considered. Effects related to inhomogeneous distribution of g-factor and anisotropic spin relaxation time on measured quantities are discussed.
@article{arxiv.0807.3640,
title = {Time-resolved and continuous-wave optical spin pumping of semiconductor quantum wells},
author = {G. V. Astakhov and M. M. Glazov and D. R. Yakovlev and E. A. Zhukov and W. Ossau and L. W. Molenkamp and M. Bayer},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0807.3640},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
26 pages, 19 figures, submitted to special issue on Optical Orientation of Semiconductor Science and Technology