Spin relaxation in the impurity band of a semiconductor in the external magnetic field

Abstract

Spin relaxation in the impurity band of a 2D semiconductor with spin-split spectrum in the external magnetic field is considered. Several mechanisms of spin relaxation are shown to be relevant. The first one is attributed to phonon-assisted transitions between Zeeman sublevels of the ground state of an isolated impurity, while other mechanisms can be described in terms of spin precession in a random magnetic field during the electron motion over the impurity band. In the later case there are two contributions to the spin relaxation: the one given by optimal impurity configurations with the hop-waiting time inversely proportional to the external magnetic field and another one related to the electron motion on a large scale. The average spin relaxation rate is calculated.