Temporal decay of coherently optically injected charge and spin currents due to carrier–LO-phonon and carrier-carrier scattering

The coherent ultrafast optical injection and the temporal evolution of charge and spin currents in semiconductors is analyzed using a microscopic many-body theory. The approach is based on the semiconductor Bloch equations and includes light-field-induced intraband and interband excitations, excitonic effects, and carrier–LO-phonon and carrier-carrier scattering processes. The relaxation effects are treated both in the second Born-Markov approximation and on the level of quantum kinetic theory including memory effects. The dynamics of the charge and spin currents is evaluated numerically for a one-dimensional model system. The dependence of the currents and their decay on the temperature, the excitation intensities, and the frequencies of the incident light fields is discussed. Whereas the overall decay dynamics is described well within the Markov approximation, the quantum kinetic theory predicts additional oscillatory signatures in the current transients.