Numerical study of resonant spin relaxation in quasi-1D channels

Abstract

Recent experiments demonstrate that a ballistic version of spin resonance, mediated by spin-orbit interaction, can be induced in narrow channels of a high-mobility GaAs two-dimensional electron gas by matching the spin precession frequency with the frequency of bouncing trajectories in the channel. Contrary to the typical suppression of Dyakonov-Perel' spin relaxation in confined geometries, the spin relaxation rate increases by orders of magnitude on resonance. Here, we present Monte Carlo simulations of this effect to explore the roles of varying degrees of disorder and strength of spin-orbit interaction. These simulations help to extract quantitative spin-orbit parameters from experimental measurements of ballistic spin resonance, and may guide the development of future spintronic devices.