Spin inertia measurements are a novel experimental tool to study long-time spin relaxation processes in semiconductor nanostructures. We develop a theory of the spin inertia effect for resident electrons and holes localized in quantum dots. We consider the spin orientation by short optical pulses with arbitrary pulse area and detuning from the trion resonance. The interaction with an external longitudinal magnetic field and the hyperfine interaction with the nuclear spin bath is considered in both the ground and excited (trion) states of the quantum dots. We analyze how the spin inertia signal depends on the magnetic field (polarization recovery) and on the modulation frequency of the helicity of the pump pulses as well as on their power and detuning. In particular, we elaborate how approaching the saturation limit of the spin polarization influences the measurements. The quantitative description of spin inertia measurements will enable the determination of the parameters of spin dynamics such as the spin relaxation times in the ground and excited states and the parameters of the hyperfine interaction. Finally, we predict the emergence of resonant spin amplification due to the transverse components of the nuclear spin fluctuations, which manifests itself as oscillations of the spin polarization as a function of the longitudinal magnetic field.
Magnonics and magnon spintronics aim at the utilization of spin waves and magnons, their quanta, for the construction of wave-based logic networks via the generation of pure all-magnon spin currents and their interfacing with electrical charge transport. The promise of efficient parallel data processing and low power consumption renders this field one of the most promising research areas in spintronics. In this context, the process of parallel parametric amplification, i.e., the conversion of microwave photons into magnons at one half of the microwave frequency, has proven to be a versatile to…
We present the experimental observation of the localized amplification of externally excited spin waves in a transversely in-plane magnetized Ni$_{81}$Fe$_{19}$ magnonic waveguide by means of parallel pumping. By employing microfocussed Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy, we analyze the dependency of the amplification on the applied pumping power and on the delay between the input spin-wave packet and the pumping pulse. We show that there are two different operation regimes: At large pumping powers, the spin-wave packet needs to enter the amplifier before the pumping is switched on in ord…
Stimulated emission is a process during which an atomic system gives away energy to create a coherent photon. It is fundamental to the operation of the optical amplifier. Here we propose two mechanisms for amplifying AC spin currents in a solid-state magnetic medium by a stimulated spin pumping process. The first is synchronous and consists of phase-locked pulses that perturb a precessing magnetic moment. The second is asynchronous and is driven by DC spin currents. The amplification relies on a non-adiabatic interaction taking place in a ferromagnetic medium in which the magnetic moment emits…
Benchmarking the generalized Kadanoff-Baym ansatz and second-order adiabatic expansion using time-dependent spintronic effects: Spin pumping, torque, and inertia
University of Delaware（特拉华大学）；Universidad Nacional de Colombia（哥伦比亚国立大学）
Optical pump-probe techniques are used to generate and measure electron spin polarization in a gallium arsenide epilayer in which the electron spin coherence time exceeds the mode-locked laser repetition period. Resonant spin amplification occurs at magnetic fields at which the electron spin polarization excited by successive laser pulses add constructively. Measurements of Kerr rotation as a function of applied magnetic field reveal nuclear spin polarization that aligns either with or against the external magnetic field depending on whether the applied magnetic field is being decreased or inc…
Parametric amplification is widely used in nanoelectro-mechanical systems to enhance the transduced mechanical signals. Although parametric amplification has been studied in different mechanical resonator systems, the nonlinear dynamics involved receives less attention. Taking advantage of the excellent electrical and mechanical properties of graphene, we demonstrate electrical tunable parametric amplification using a doubly clamped graphene nanomechanical resonator. By applying external microwave pumping with twice the resonant frequency, we investigate parametric amplification in the nonline…
The linear and nonlinear interactions between spin waves (magnons) and acoustic waves (phonons) in magnetostrictive materials provide an exciting opportunity for realizing novel microwave signal processing devices and spintronic circuits. Here we demonstrate the parametric pumping of spin waves by acoustic waves, the possibility of which has long been theoretically anticipated but never experimentally realized. Spin waves propagating in a thin film of yttrium iron garnet (YIG), a magnetostrictive ferrimagnet with low spin and acoustic wave damping, are pumped using an acoustic resonator driven…
We experimentally demonstrate that large magnetic vortex oscillations can be parametrically excited in a magnetic tunnel junction by the injection of radio-frequency (rf) currents at twice the natural frequency of the gyrotropic vortex core motion. The mechanism of excitation is based on the parallel pumping of vortex motion by the rf orthoradial field generated by the injected current. Theoretical analysis shows that experimental results can be interpreted as the manifestation of parametric amplification when rf current is small, and of parametric instability when rf current is above a certai…
Periodic excitation of electron spin polarization by consecutive laser pulses in phase with Larmor spin precession about a magnetic field results in resonant spin amplification (RSA). We observe a drastic modification of RSA in $n$-doped bulk GaAs under the influence of external oscillating magnetic field. We find a double-peaked electron spin resonance instead of a single-peaked resonance expected without optical pumping. The frequency splitting increases linearly with amplitude of field oscillations, while the spin deviation increases quadratically. Moreover, we show that the oscillating fie…
We have found that intensity $I$ and circular polarization degree $ρ$ of the edge photoluminescence, excited in GaAsN alloys by circularly polarized light at room temperature, grow substantially in the longitudinal magnetic field $B$ of the order of 1\,kG. This increase depends on the intensity of pumping and, in the region of weak or moderate intensities, may reach a twofold value. In two-charge-state model, which considers spin-dependent recombination of spin-oriented free electrons on deep paramagnetic centers, we included the magnetic-field suppression of spin relaxation of the electrons b…
We investigate spin dynamics of resident holes in a p-modulation-doped GaAs/Al$_{0.3}$Ga$_{0.7}$As single quantum well. Time-resolved Faraday and Kerr rotation, as well as resonant spin amplification, are utilized in our study. We observe that nonresonant or high power optical pumping leads to a resident hole spin polarization with opposite sign with respect to the optically oriented carriers, while low power resonant optical pumping only leads to a resident hole spin polarization if a sufficient in-plane magnetic field is applied. The competition between two different processes of spin orient…
We report on measurements performed at low temperatures on a nanoelectromechanical system (NEMS) under (capacitive) parametric pumping. The excitations and detection schemes are purely electrical, and enable in the present experiment the straightforward measurement of forces down to about a femtonewton, for displacements of an Angström, using standard room temperature electronics. We demonstrate that a small (linear) force applied on the device can be amplified up to more than a 100 times, while the system is {\it truly moving}. We explore the dynamics up to about 50$~$nm deflections for canti…
Spin-orbit-related effects offer a highly promising route for reading and writing information in magnetic units of future devices. These phenomena rely not only on the static magnetization orientation but also on its dynamics to achieve fast switchings that can reach the THz range. In this work, we consider Co/Pt and Fe/W bilayers to show that accounting for the phase difference between different processes is crucial to the correct description of the dynamical currents. By tuning each system towards its ferromagnetic resonance, we reveal that dynamical spin Hall angles can non-trivially change…
We demonstrate the realization of the resonant spin amplification (RSA) effect in Faraday geometry where a magnetic field is applied parallel to the optically induced spin polarization so that no RSA is expected. However, model considerations predict that it can be realized for a central spin interacting with a fluctuating spin environment. As a demonstrator, we choose an ensemble of singly-charged (In,Ga)As/GaAs quantum dots, where the resident electron spins interact with the surrounding nuclear spins. The observation of RSA in Faraday geometry requires intense pump pulses with a high repeti…
Experimental and theoretical studies of all-optical spin pump and probe of resident electrons in CdTe/(Cd,Mg)Te semiconductor quantum wells are reported. A two-color Hanle-MOKE technique (based on continuous-wave excitation) and time-resolved Kerr rotation in the regime of resonant spin amplification (based on pulsed excitation) provide a complementary measure of electron spin relaxation time. Influence of electron localization on long-lived spin coherence is examined by means of spectral and temperature dependencies. Various scenarios of spin polarization generation (via the trion and exciton…
The dynamic polarization of nuclear spins interacting with resident electrons under resonant excitation of trions is studied in a nominally undoped GaAs/(Al,Ga)As quantum well. Unlike in common time-resolved pump-probe techniques, we used a single beam approach where the excitation light is modulated between the circular and linear polarization states. The time-integrated intensity of the excitation laser reflected from the sample surface, proportional to the optical generation rate and changes due to the pumping of the resident electrons, is detected. Polarized electrons on the other hand tra…
We introduce a multiscale framework which combines time-dependent nonequilibrium Green function (TD-NEGF) algorithms, scaling linearly in the number of time steps and describing quantum-mechanically conduction electrons in the presence of time-dependent fields of arbitrary strength or frequency, with classical time evolution of localized magnetic moments described by the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert (LLG) equation. The TD-NEGF+LLG framework can be applied to a variety of problems where current-driven spin torque induces dynamics of magnetic moments as the key resource for next generation spintronic…
The spin dynamics of the strongly localized, donor-bound electrons in fluorine-doped ZnSe epilayers is studied by pump-probe Kerr rotation techniques. A method exploiting the spin inertia is developed and used to measure the longitudinal spin relaxation time, $T_1$, in a wide range of magnetic fields, temperatures, and pump densities. The $T_1$ time of the donor-bound electron spin of about 1.6 $μ$s remains nearly constant for external magnetic fields varied from zero up to 2.5 T (Faraday geometry) and in a temperature range $1.8-45$ K. The inhomogeneous spin dephasing time, $T_2^*=8-33$ ns, i…
Electron spin oriented along an external magnetic field is subject to longitudinal spin relaxation with characteristic time $T_1$. The corresponding decay is nonoscillating, so one cannot readily ascribe $T_1$ to a certain $g$ factor. This becomes a problem when several electronic states with different $g$ factors are present in the system, e.g. electrons and holes. We solve this problem by optically pumping spin polarization and then selectively depolarizing it using a radio frequency (rf) field. By modulating the rf field one can observe the retarded modulation of spin polarization which dep…
Nonequilibrium condensate systems such as exciton-polariton condensates are capable of supporting a spontaneous vortex nucleation. The spatial inhomogeneity of pumping field or/and disordered potential creates velocity flow fields that may become unstable to vortex formation. This letter considers ways in which turbulent states of interacting vortices can be created. It is shown that by combining just two pumping intensities it is possible to create a superfluid turbulence state of well-separated vortices, a strong turbulence state of de-structured vortices, or a weak turbulence state in which…
Low-noise amplification atmicrowave frequencies has become increasingly important for the research related to superconducting qubits and nanoelectromechanical systems. The fundamental limit of added noise by a phase-preserving amplifier is the standard quantum limit, often expressed as noise temperature $T_{q} = \hbar ω/2k_{B}$. Towards the goal of the quantum limit, we have developed an amplifier based on intrinsic negative resistance of a selectively damped Josephson junction. Here we present measurement results on previously proposed wide-band microwave amplification and discuss the challen…
Single-mode Josephson junction-based parametric amplifiers are often modeled as perfect amplifiers and squeezers. We show that, in practice, the gain, quantum efficiency, and output field squeezing of these devices are limited by usually neglected higher-order corrections to the idealized model. To arrive at this result, we derive the leading corrections to the lumped-element Josephson parametric amplifier of three common pumping schemes: monochromatic current pump, bichromatic current pump, and monochromatic flux pump. We show that the leading correction for the last two schemes is a single K…
