Spin relaxation and combined resonance in two-dimensional electron systems with spin-orbit disorder

V. K. Dugaev, E. Ya. Sherman, V. I. Ivanov, J. Barnas

Published 2009-09-02Version 1

Disorder in spin-orbit (SO) coupling is an important feature of real low-dimensional electron structures. We study spin relaxation due to such a disorder as well as resulting abilities of spin manipulation. The spin relaxation reveals quantum effects when the spatial scale of the randomness is smaller than the electron wavelength. Due to the disorder in SO coupling, a time-dependent external electric field generates a spatially random spin-dependent perturbation. The resulting electric dipole spin resonance in a two-dimensional electron gas leads to spin injection in a frequency range of the order of the Fermi energy. These effects can be important for possible applications in spintronics.