Hole spin relaxation in intrinsic and $p$-type bulk GaAs

K. Shen, M. W. Wu

Published 2010-07-07, updated 2010-08-21Version 3

We investigate hole spin relaxation in intrinsic and $p$-type bulk GaAs from a fully microscopic kinetic spin Bloch equation approach. In contrast to the previous study on hole spin dynamics, we explicitly include the intraband coherence and the nonpolar hole-optical-phonon interaction, both of which are demonstrated to be of great importance to the hole spin relaxation. The relative contributions of the D'yakonov-Perel' and Elliott-Yafet mechanisms on hole spin relaxation are also analyzed. In our calculation, the screening constant, playing an important role in the hole spin relaxation, is treated with the random phase approximation. In intrinsic GaAs, our result shows good agreement with the experiment data at room temperature, where the hole spin relaxation is demonstrated to be dominated by the Elliott-Yafet mechanism. We also find that the hole spin relaxation strongly depends on the temperature and predict a valley in the density dependence of the hole spin relaxation time at low temperature due to the hole-electron scattering. In $p$-type GaAs, we predict a peak in the spin relaxation time against the hole density at low temperature, which originates from the distinct behaviors of the screening in the degenerate and nondegenerate regimes. The competition between the screening and the momentum exchange during scattering events can also lead to a valley in the density dependence of the hole spin relaxation time in the low density regime. At high temperature, the effect of the screening is suppressed due to the small screening constant. Moreover, we predict a nonmonotonic dependence of the hole spin relaxation time on temperature associated with the screening together with the hole-phonon scattering. Finally, we find that the D'yakonov-Perel' mechanism can markedly contribute to the .... (omitted due to the limit of space)