2003/03/11 by S. D. Ganichev, Sergey Ganichev, Petra Schneider +34 · 2 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Condensed Matter (cond-mat) #FOS: Physical sciences #Magnetic properties of thin films #Magneto-Optical Properties and Applications #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #cond-mat
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0303193
openalex publication_date 2003/03/11 · arxiv created 2003/06/06 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Under oblique incidence of circularly polarized infrared radiation the spin-galvanic effect has been unambiguously observed in (001)-grown n-type GaAs quantum well (QW) structures in the absence of any external magnetic field. Resonant inter-subband transitions have been obtained making use of the tunability of the free-electron laser FELIX. It is shown that a helicity dependent photocurrent along one of the <110> axes is predominantly contributed by the spin-galvanic effect while that along the perpendicular in-plane axis is mainly due to the circular photogalvanic effect. This strong non-equivalence of the [110] and [110] directions is determined by the interplay between bulk and structural inversion asymmetries. A microscopic theory of the spin-galvanic effect for direct inter-subband optical transitions has been developed being in good agreement with experimental findings.