S. Yu. Verbin

Long-lived spin polarisation in the charged InP quantum dots

Abstract This work is aimed at the investigation of the spin relaxation in controllably charged quantum dots (QDs). Measuring the dependence of the spin lifetime on the gate voltage in a heterostructure containing InP QDs, we detected the onset of spin conservation when the QD became negatively charged. The spin lifetime in the charged QDs exceeded 1 ns . Various properties of the long-lived spin polarisation of the QDs in longitudinal magnetic field as well as under various excitation conditions are discussed.

Radiative decay rate of excitons in square quantum wells: Microscopic modeling and experiment

The binding energy and the corresponding wave function of excitons in GaAs-based finite square quantum wells (QWs) are calculated by the direct numerical solution of the three-dimensional Schrodinger equation. The precise results for the lowest exciton state are obtained by the Hamiltonian discretization using the high-order finite-difference scheme. The microscopic calculations are compared with the results obtained by the standard variational approach. The exciton binding energies found by two methods coincide within 0.1 meV for the wide range of QW widths. The radiative decay rate is calculated for QWs of various widths using the exciton wave functions obtained by direct and variational methods. The radiative decay rates are confronted with the experimental data measured for high-quality GaAs/AlGaAs and InGaAs/GaAs QW heterostructures grown by molecular beam epitaxy. The calculated and measured values are in good agreement, though slight differences with earlier calculations of the radiative decay rate...

Nuclear magnetic resonances in (In,Ga)As/GaAs quantum dots studied by resonant optical pumping

The photoluminescence polarizations of (In,Ga)As/GaAs quantum dots annealed at different temperatures are studied as a function of external magnetic field (Hanle curves). In these dependencies, remarkable resonant features appear due to all-optical nuclear magnetic resonances (NMR) for optical excitation with modulated circular polarization. Application of an additional radio-frequency field synchronously with the polarization modulation strongly modifies the NMR features. The resonances can be related to transitions between different nuclear spin states split by the strain-induced gradient of the crystal field and by the externally applied magnetic field. A theoretical model is developed to simulate quadrupole and Zeeman splittings of the nuclear spins in a strained quantum dot. Comparison with the experiment allows us to uniquely identify the observed resonances. The large broadening of the NMR resonances is attributed to variations of the quadrupole splitting within the quantum dot volume, which is well described by the model.

Negative circular polarization of InP QD luminescence: Mechanism of formation and main regularities

The spectrum and kinetics of the circular polarization of InP quantum dot (QD) photoluminescence have been experimentally investigated under different conditions of optical excitation and at different bias voltages applied to the sample. It is established that, at a bias of about −0.1 V, the degree of photoluminescence polarization is negative and reaches −50% in limiting cases. It is concluded that the negative polarization is formed in QDs containing one recident electron per dot and is mainly caused by the optical orientation of the electron spin. It is shown that all experimentally observed regularities are well described in the framework of the model assuming the energy relaxation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs accompanied by the electron- hole spin flip-flop process.

Recombination emission from InAs quantum dots grown on vicinal GaAs surfaces

Photoluminescence (PL) spectra of InAs/GaAs heteroepitaxial structures with quantum dots (QDs) have been studied. The structures were grown by submonolayer migration-enhanced epitaxy on vicinal substrates with the amount of deposited InAs close to the critical value of 1.8 monolayer (ML). The origin and evolution of the structure of PL spectra were studied in relation to the direction and angle of misorientation, temperature, and power density and spectrum of the exciting radiation. A blue shift and narrowing of the PL band with increasing misorientation angle was established experimentally. The fact that QDs become smaller and more uniform in size is explained in terms of a lateral confinement of QDs on terraces with account taken of the step bunching effect. The temperature dependences of the positions and full widths at half-maximum (FWHM) of PL bands are fundamentally different for isolated and associated QDs. The exciton ground states contribute to all low-temperature spectral components. The excited exciton state contributes to the recombination emission from QDs, as evidenced by the temperature dependence of the integrated intensity of the PL bands. A quantitative estimate is given of the electronic structure of different families of InAs QDs grown on GaAs substrates misoriented by 7° in the [001] direction.

Spin quantum beats in charged and neutral InP quantum dots

Abstract We report on several types of quantum beats observed in the photoluminescence kinetics of InP self-assembled quantum dots (QDs) in a magnetic field. It is shown that the charge state of the QDs crucially affects the possibility to observe the beats.

Dynamics of nuclear polarization in InGaAs quantum dots in a transverse magnetic field

The time-resolved Hanle effect is examined for negatively charged InGaAs/GaAs quantum dots. Experimental data are analyzed by using an original approach to separate behavior of the longitudinal and transverse components of nuclear polarization. This made it possible to determine the rise and decay times of each component of nuclear polarization and their dependence on transverse magnetic field strength. The rise and decay times of the longitudinal component of nuclear polarization (parallel to the applied field) were found to be almost equal (approximately 5 ms). An analysis of the transverse component of nuclear polarization shows that the corresponding rise and decay times differ widely and strongly depend on magnetic field strength, increasing from a few to tens of milliseconds with an applied field between 20 and 100 mT. Current phenomenological models fail to explain the observed behavior of nuclear polarization. To find an explanation, an adequate theory of spin dynamics should be developed for the nuclear spin system of a quantum dot under conditions of strong quadrupole splitting.

Measurement of the Knight field and local nuclear dipole-dipole field in an InGaAs/GaAs quantum dot ensemble

We present a comprehensive investigation of the electron-nuclear system of negatively charged InGaAs/GaAs self-assembled quantum dots (QDs) under the influence of weak external magnetic fields (up to 3 mT). We demonstrate that, in contrast to conventional semiconductor systems, these small fields have a profound influence on the electron spin dynamics, via the hyperfine interaction. QDs, with their comparatively limited number of nuclei, present electron-nuclear behavior that is unique to low-dimensional systems. We show that the conventional Hanle effect used to measure electron-spin relaxation times, for example, cannot be used in these systems when the spin lifetimes are long. An individual nucleus in the QD is subject to milli-Tesla effective fields, arising from the interaction with its nearest neighbors and with the electronic Knight field. The alignment of each nucleus is influenced by application of external fields of the same magnitude. A polarized nuclear system, which may have an effective field strength of several Tesla, may easily be influenced by these milli-Tesla fields. This in turn has a dramatic effect on the electron-spin dynamics and we use this technique to gain a measure of both the dipole-dipole field and the maximum Knight field in our system thus allowing us to estimate the maximum Overhauser field that may be generated at zero external magnetic field. We also show that one may fine tune the angle which the Overhauser field makes with the optical axis.

Spin dynamics of quadrupole nuclei in InGaAs quantum dots

Photoluminescence polarization is experimentally studied for samples with (In,Ga)As/GaAs selfassembled quantum dots in transverse magnetic field (Hanle effect) under slow modulation of the excitation light polarization from fractions of Hz to tens of kHz. The polarization reflects the evolution of strongly coupled electron-nuclear spin system in the quantum dots. Strong modification of the Hanle curves under variation of the modulation period is attributed to the peculiarities of the spin dynamics of quadrupole nuclei, which states are split due to deformation of the crystal lattice in the quantum dots. Analysis of the Hanle curves is fulfilled in the framework of a phenomenological model considering a separate dynamics of a nuclear field BNd determined by the +/- 12 nuclear spin states and of a nuclear field BNq determined by the split-off states +/- 3/2, +/- 5/2, etc. It is found that the characteristic relaxation time for the nuclear field BNd is of order of 0.5 s, while the relaxation of the field BNq is faster by three orders of magnitude.

Theoretical modeling of exciton-light coupling in quantum wells

The wave function of excitons in GaAs-based finite square quantum wells (QWs) is calculated by the direct numerical solution of the three-dimensional Schrodinger equation. The precise results for the lowest exciton state are obtained by the Hamiltonian discretization using the fourth-order finite-difference scheme. The radiative decay rate is calculated for QWs of various widths using the obtained exciton wave function.