Electron spin relaxation time in (110) InGaAs/InAlAs quantum wells

• Published in: Journal of applied physics Vol. 116; no. 2
• Main Authors: Yokota, Nobuhide, Yasuda, Yusuke, Ikeda, Kazuhiro, Kawaguchi, Hitoshi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Melville American Institute of Physics 14.07.2014
• Subjects: ALUMINIUM ARSENIDES; Aluminum gallium arsenides; Applied physics; CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY; Crystal structure; CRYSTALS; Electron spin; ELECTRONS; Gallium arsenide; GALLIUM ARSENIDES; Indium aluminum arsenides; INDIUM ARSENIDES; Indium gallium arsenides; QUANTUM WELLS; RELAXATION TIME; SPIN; SUBSTRATES; TEMPERATURE RANGE 0273-0400 K; TERNARY ALLOY SYSTEMS; TRANSMISSION
• ISSN: 0021-8979; 1089-7550
• DOI: 10.1063/1.4887803

Electron spin relaxation time τs in InGaAs/InAlAs quantum wells (QWs) grown on (110) and (100) InP substrates was investigated by pump-probe transmission measurements. Similar τs of 0.83–1.0 ns were measured at room temperature for all the measured (110) and (100) QWs, indicating suppression of the D'yakonov-Perel' spin relaxation mechanism in (110) QWs is not effective in InGaAs/InAlAs QWs as opposed to GaAs/AlGaAs QWs. Contribution of the Bir-Aronov-Pikus mechanism dominant in (110) GaAs/AlGaAs QWs was found to be small in both the (110) and (100) InGaAs/InAlAs QWs from the weak dependences of τs on pump intensity at room temperature. These results suggest that the spin relaxation mechanism dominant in InGaAs/InAlAs QWs at a temperature higher than 200 K is the Elliott-Yafet mechanism independent of the crystal orientation among the above three major mechanisms.