Spin Lifetime Tuning in Zincblende Heterostructures and Tions to Spin Devices

We present analytical expressions for the D’yakonov-Perel’ spin relaxation rates under the combined action of bulk and structural inversion asymmetry for [111] zincblende heterostructures when terms up to linear and third order in k are included in the Hamiltonian. We see for [111] heterostructures that, under the right conditions, the lowest-order-in-k component of the spin relaxation tensor can be made to vanish for all spin components at the same time. We study how the inclusion of terms of higher order in k affects these results. We finally discuss a proposal for a resonant spin lifetime transistor (RSLT) using the spin lifetime tuning concepts presented above, where the characteristics of the [111] device give the designer an added degree of freedom on the direction of the injected spins.