Anomalous spin dephasing in (110) GaAs quantum wells: anisotropy and intersubband effects.
A strong anisotropy of electron spin decoherence is observed in GaAs/(AlGa)As quantum wells grown on a (110) oriented substrate. The spin lifetime of spins perpendicular to the growth direction is about one order of magnitude shorter compared to spins along [110]. The spin lifetimes of both spin orientations decrease monotonically above temperatures of 80 and 120 K, respectively. The decrease is very surprising for spins along the [110] direction and cannot be explained by the usual Dyakonov-Perel dephasing mechanism. A novel spin dephasing mechanism is put forward that is based on scattering of electrons between different quantum well subbands.
Döhrmann
S
S
Institut für Festkörperphysik, Universität Hannover, Germany.
Hägele
D
D
Rudolph
J
J
Bichler
M
M
Schuh
D
D
Oestreich
M
M