For the realisation of scalable solid-state quantum-bit systems, spins in semiconductor quantum dots are promising candidates. A key requirement for quantum logic operations is a sufficiently long coherence time of the spin system. Recently, hole spins in III-V-based quantum dots were discussed as alternatives to electron spins, since the hole spin, in contrast to the electron spin, is not affected by contact hyperfine interaction with the nuclear spins. Here, we report a breakthrough in the spin coherence times of hole ensembles, confined in so called natural quantum dots, in narrow GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells at temperatures below 500 mK. Consistently, time-resolved Faraday rotation and resonant spin amplification techniques deliver holespin coherence times, which approach in the low magnetic field limit values above 70 ns. The optical initialisation of the hole spin polarisation, as well as the interconnected electron and hole spin dynamics in our samples are well reproduced using a rate equation model.

We have investigated spin and carrier dynamics of resident holes in high-mobility two-dimensional hole systems in GaAs/ Al 0.3 Ga 0.7 As single-quantum wells at temperatures down to 400 mK. Time-resolved Faraday and Kerr rotation as well as time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy are utilized in our study. We observe long-lived hole-spin dynamics that are strongly temperature dependent, indicating that in-plane localization is crucial for hole-spin coherence. By applying a gate voltage, we are able to tune the observed hole g factor by more than 50%. Calculations of the hole g tensor as a function of the applied bias show excellent agreement with our experimental findings.

We investigate spin dynamics of resident holes in a p-modulation-doped GaAs/Al0.3Ga0.7As single quantum well. Time-resolved Faraday and Kerr rotation, as well as resonant spin amplification, are utilized in our study. We observe that nonresonant or high power optical pumping leads to a resident hole spin polarization with opposite sign with respect to the optically oriented carriers, while low power resonant optical pumping only leads to a resident hole spin polarization if a sufficient inplane magnetic field is applied. The competition between two different processes of spin orientation strongly modifies the shape of resonant spin amplification traces. Calculations of the spin dynamics in the electron-hole system are in good agreement with the experimental Kerr rotation and resonant spin amplification traces and allow us to determine the hole spin polarization within the sample after optical orientation, as well as to extract quantitative information about spin dephasing processes at various stages of the evolution.

We report on the study of the linear and circular magnetogyrotropic photogalvanic effect (MPGE) in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well structures. Using the fact that in such structures the Landé factor g * depends on the quantum well (QW) width and has different signs for narrow and wide QWs, we succeeded to separate spin and orbital contributions to both MPGEs. Our experiments show that, for most QW widths, the MPGEs are mainly driven by spin-related mechanisms, which results in a photocurrent proportional to the g * factor. In structures with a vanishingly small g * factor, however, linear and circular MPGE are also detected, proving the existence of orbital mechanisms.

No abstract