Dresden 2011 – scientific programme

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HL: Fachverband Halbleiterphysik

HL 48: ZnO: Devices

HL 48.8: Talk

Wednesday, March 16, 2011, 12:15–12:30, POT 151

Optical spin orientation by linearly polarized light in ZnO — •Vera Klinke¹, Christoph Schwark¹, Christian Weier¹, Gernot Güntherodt¹, Matthias Althammer², Sebastian T.B. Goennenwein², Matthias Opel², Rudolf Gross², and Bernd Beschoten¹ — ¹Physikalisches Institut II A, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany — ²Walther-Meißner-Institut, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Garching, Germany

Optical absorption of circularly polarized light is well known to yield spin-polarized electrons. Recently, some of us have demonstrated that electron spin polarization can even be generated with high efficiency by absorption of linearly polarized light in InGaAs for laser energies near its fundamental band gap [1]. This method allows to selectively excite in-plane or out-of-plane spins. The excitation mechanism, however, has not been fully understood. We extend our studies to unintentionally doped ZnO samples. For laser excitation energies far below the band gap, we can resonantly spin-polarize donor bound excitons with linearly polarized light excitation. Surprisingly, the observed Faraday rotation for linearly polarized excitation can even be 10 times larger than for circularly polarized excitation.

This work has been supported by DFG through SPP 1285.

[1] K. Schmalbuch et al., arXiv:1008.0157, Phys. Rev. Lett. (in press)