Quantum dynamics of nuclear spins and spin relaxation in organic semiconductors

Journal Article (2017)
Author(s)

V. V. Mkhitaryan (Iowa State University)

V. V. Dobrovitski (TU Delft - QID/Dobrovitski Group, Iowa State University)

Research Group
QID/Dobrovitski Group
Copyright
© 2017 V. V. Mkhitaryan, V.V. Dobrovitski
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.95.214204
More Info
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Publication Year
2017
Language
English
Copyright
© 2017 V. V. Mkhitaryan, V.V. Dobrovitski
Research Group
QID/Dobrovitski Group
Issue number
21
Volume number
95
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Abstract

We investigate the role of the nuclear-spin quantum dynamics in hyperfine-induced spin relaxation of hopping carriers in organic semiconductors. The fast-hopping regime, when the carrier spin does not rotate much between subsequent hops, is typical for organic semiconductors possessing long spin coherence times. We consider this regime and focus on a carrier random-walk diffusion in one dimension, where the effect of the nuclear-spin dynamics is expected to be the strongest. Exact numerical simulations of spin systems with up to 25 nuclear spins are performed using the Suzuki-Trotter decomposition of the evolution operator. Larger nuclear-spin systems are modeled utilizing the spin-coherent state P-representation approach developed earlier. We find that the nuclear-spin dynamics strongly influences the carrier spin relaxation at long times. If the random walk is restricted to a small area, it leads to the quenching of carrier spin polarization at a nonzero value at long times. If the random walk is unrestricted, the carrier spin polarization acquires a long-time tail, decaying as 1/t. Based on the numerical results, we devise a simple formula describing the effect quantitatively.

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