We report on the study of spin-polarized electric currents in diluted magnetic semiconductor (DMS) quantum wells subjected to an in-plane external magnetic field and illuminated by microwave or terahertz radiation. The effect is studied in (Cd,Mn)Te/(Cd,Mg)Te quantum-wells (QWs) and (In,Ga)As/InAlAs:Mn QWs belonging to the well-known II-VI and III-V DMS material systems, as well as in heterovalent AlSb/InAs/(Zn,Mn)Te QWs, which represent a promising combination of II-VI and III-V semiconductors. Experimental data and developed theory demonstrate that the photocurrent originates from a spin-dependent scattering of free carriers by static defects or phonons in the Drude absorption of radiation and subsequent relaxation of carriers. We show that in DMS structures, the efficiency of the current generation is drastically enhanced compared to nonmagnetic semiconductors. The enhancement is caused by the exchange interaction of carrier spins with localized spins of magnetic ions resulting, on the one hand, in the giant Zeeman spin splitting, and, on the other hand, in the spin-dependent carrier scattering by localized Mn 2+ ions polarized by an external magnetic field.

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Magneto-optical spectroscopy in combination with tunable laser excitation is employed to study exciton spin alignment and injection in ZnMnSe/ZnCdSe quantum structures. This approach enables us to selectively create preferred spin orientation and to separately monitor subsequent spin injection from individual spin states, thus shedding light on a possible source of spin loss. It is shown that the limited spin polarization in a nonmagnetic quantum well due to spin injection from a ZnMnSe-based diluted magnetic semiconductor (DMS) is not caused by a limited degree of spin alignment in the DMS, which is in fact complete, but rather occurs during subsequent processes.

We report on microwave (mw) radiation induced electric currents in (Cd,Mn)Te/(Cd,Mg)Te and InAs/(In,Ga)As quantum wells subjected to an external in-plane magnetic field. The current generation is attributed to the spin-dependent energy relaxation of electrons heated by mw radiation. The relaxation produces equal and oppositely directed electron flows in the spin-up and spin-down subbands yielding a pure spin current. The Zeeman splitting of the subbands in the magnetic field leads to the conversion of the spin flow into a spin-polarized electric current.

We report on the photoluminescence (PL) studies of InSb-enriched quantum dots (QDs) which are grown by molecular beam epitaxy in an InAs matrix. InSb∕InAs heterostructures have a nominal thickness of InSb insertions in the range of 0.6–2 monolayers and exhibit bright PL up to room temperature in the mid-infrared spectral range. The PL temperature dependence gives evidence that each InSb insertion can be regarded as an ensemble of QDs subject to carrier transfer even at low temperatures. Both QD PL energy and line-shape variations with temperature can be described employing Fermi-Dirac carrier statistics.