Optical Absorption to Probe the Quantum Hall Ferromagnet at Filling Factor ν=1

Optical absorption measurements are used to probe the spin polarization in the integer and fractional quantum Hall effect regimes. The system is fully spin polarized only at filling factor nu=1 and at very low temperatures (similar to 40 mK). A small change in filling factor (delta nu approximate to +/- 0.01) leads to a significant depolarization. This suggests that the itinerant quantum Hall ferromagnet at nu=1 is surprisingly fragile against increasing temperature, or against small changes in filling factor.