Spin relaxation in the quantized Hall regime in the presence of disorder
S. Dickmann
Institute for Solid State Physics RAS, 142432 Chernogolovka, Moscow District, Russia
Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100 Rehovot, Israel
PACS: 72.25.Rb, 73.43.Cd, 75.30.Ds
Abstract
We study the spin relaxation (SR) of a
two-dimensional electron gas in the quantized Hall regime and discuss the
role of spatial inhomogeneity effects on the relaxation. The results are
obtained for small filling factors (
) or when the filling factor is
close to an integer. In either case SR times are essentially determined by a
smooth random potential. For small ν we predict a "magneto-confinement"
resonance manifested in the enhancement of the SR rate when the Zeeman energy
is close to the spacing of confinement sublevels in the low-energy wing of
the disorder-broadened Landau level. In the resonant region the
B-dependence of the SR time has a peculiar non-monotonic shape. If
, the SR is going non-exponentially.
Under typical conditions the calculated SR times range from 10-8 to
10-6 s.