Tunability of electron spin coherence in III-V quantum wells

Abstract

We have calculated both T 1 and T 2 for (110)-oriented GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells near room temperature. The altered symmetry of (110)-oriented quantum wells leads to an increase in calculated spin coherence times (T 1) compared to those of similar (100)-oriented quantum wells, exceeding 1 ns at room temperature. We have also studied the electron spin coherence times as a function of applied electric field in (100)- and (110)-oriented GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells. T 1 is considerably more responsive to the growth-direction electric field in (110)-oriented quantum wells than in (100)-oriented quantum wells, whereas the response of T 2 is similar for both growth directions. © 2002 American Institute of Physics.