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Magnetic Field Effect on Electron Spin Dynamics in (110) GaAs Quantum wells

We study the electron spin relaxation in both symmetric and asymmetric GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells (QWs) grown on (110) substrates in an external magnetic field B applied along the QW normal. The spin polarization is induced by circularly polarized light and detected by time-resolved Kerr rotation technique. In the asymmetric structure, where a δ-doped layer on one side of the QW produces the Rashba contribution to the conduction-band spin-orbit splitting, the lifetime of electron spins aligned along the growth axis exhibits an anomalous dependence on B in the range 0<B<0.5 T; this results from the interplay between the Dresselhaus and Rashba effective fields which are perpendicular to each other. For larger magnetic fields, the spin lifetime increases, which is the consequence of the cyclotron motion of the electrons and is also observed in (001)-grown quantum wells. The experimental results are in agreement with the calculation of the spin lifetimes in (110)- grown asymmetric quantum wells described by the point group Cs where the growth direction is not the principal axis of the spin-relaxation-rate tensor.