Experimental evidence for ultrashort-lived spin polarons in EuSe

We investigated the time evolution of the density of giant spin polarons in a magnetic semiconductor. Spin polarons (SPs) were photoexcited and observed using time-resolved Faraday rotation. We find the existence of two types of SPs, a short-lived spin polaron with a lifetime of around τsl = 0.5 ns and a long-lived spin polaron with a lifetime of τll = 0.45 ± 0.03 µs, at T = 5 K. The stark difference of three order of magnitude between these lifetimes suggests that in the long lived SP the electron-hole pair is relaxed and its recombination is forbidden. The short-lived SP is probably associated with SP recombination before such relaxation has occured. An extraordinary finding is that the magnitude of τsl, as well as its decrease with increasing temperature, reproduces exactly the characteristic time for SP growth. This suggests that the thermal fluctuations, responsible for SP magnetic moment growth, are also responsible for increasing the recombination probability of SPs.