Spin relaxation of holes in the split-hole band of InP and GaSb
- 15 March 1987
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review B
- Vol. 35 (8), 3843-3853
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.35.3843
Abstract
We report spin-orientation experiments for photoexcited holes in the spin-orbit-split valence band created by optical pumping with circularly polarized light near k=0. The degree of circular polarization of the + luminescence, which measures directly the spin orientation of the thermalized holes, is studied as a function of the excitation energy for n-type InP (with different doping levels ranging from 5× to 5× ) and for n-type GaSb (1.8× ). We observe no dependence of the polarization degree on doping in InP. The degree of polarization decreases similarly with increasing photon energy in InP and GaSb, materials with very different spin-orbit splittings. Several spin-relaxation mechanisms are discussed. The data are analyzed on the basis of the Dyakonov-Perel spin-relaxation mechanism. The effect of scattering between split-hole, light-hole, and heavy-hole bands is also considered. The Dyakonov-Perel mechanism seems to be dominant for hole excitations up to 0.5 eV above the + gap. From a fit of the experimental depolarization curves we obtain reasonable momentum relaxation times for holes of the order of 100–200 fs in InP and 200–300 fs in GaSb.
Keywords
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