Spin relaxation in cubic III-V semiconductor low-dimensional structures via the interaction with polar-optical phonons - art. no. 015326

Spin-relaxation rates have been calculated for the D'yakonov-Perel (DP) mechanism involving the interaction with polar-optical phonons. The inelastic nature of the collisions has been fully taken into account and expressions for the energy-dependent time constants have been found for arbitrary degeneracy and for both strong and weak spin-population differences. We investigate the energy and temperature dependence of the spin-relaxation rates for a range of quantum well (QW) widths and quantum wire (QWR) cross sections. The spin-relaxation time is found to exhibit a monotonic temperature dependence and an E-2 dependence on subband energy.