Electron spin relaxation in bulk III-V semiconductors is investigated from a fully microscopic kinetic spin Bloch equation approach where all relevant scatterings, such as, the electron–nonmagnetic-impurity, electron-phonon, electron-electron, electron-hole, and electron-hole exchange (the Bir-Aronov-Pikus mechanism) scatterings are explicitly included. The Elliott-Yafet mechanism is also fully incorporated. This approach offers a way toward thorough understanding of electron spin relaxation both near and far away from the equilibrium in the metallic regime. The dependences of the spin relaxation time on electron density, temperature, initial spin polarization, photo-excitation density, and hole density are studied thoroughly with the underlying physics analyzed. We find that these dependences are usually qualitatively different in the nondegenerate and degenerate regimes. In contrast to the previous investigations in the literature, we find that: (i) In $n$-type materials, the Elliott-Yafet mechanism is less important than the D’yakonov-Perel’ mechanism, even for the narrow band-gap semiconductors such as InSb and InAs. (ii) The density dependence of the spin relaxation time is nonmonotonic and we predict a peak in the metallic regime in both $n$-type and intrinsic materials. (iii) In intrinsic materials, the Bir-Aronov-Pikus mechanism is found to be negligible compared with the D’yakonov-Perel’ mechanism. We also predict a peak in the temperature dependence of spin relaxation time which is due to the nonmonotonic temperature dependence of the electron-electron Coulomb scattering in intrinsic materials with small initial spin polarization. (iv) In $p$-type III-V semiconductors, the Bir-Aronov-Pikus mechanism dominates spin relaxation in the low-temperature regime only when the photoexcitation density is low. When the photoexcitation density is high, the Bir-Aronov-Pikus mechanism can be comparable with the D’yakonov-Perel’ mechanism only in the moderate temperature regime roughly around the Fermi temperature of electrons, whereas for higher or lower temperature it is unimportant. The relative importance of the Bir-Aronov-Pikus mechanism decreases with the photoexcitation density and eventually becomes negligible at sufficiently high photoexcitation density. The effect of electric field on spin relaxation in $n$-type III-V semiconductors is also studied with behaviors very different from those in the two-dimensional case reported. Finally, we find good agreement of our calculation with the experimental results.

• Received 4 December 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.79.125206