Resonant inversion of circular photogalvanic effect in n-doped quantum wells,

Abstract

We show that the sign of the circular photogalvanic effect can be changed by tuning the radiation frequency of circularly polarized light. Here resonant inversion of the photogalvanic effect has been observed for direct
intersubband transition in n-type GaAs quantum well structures. This inversion of the photon helicity driven
current is a direct consequence of the lifting of the spin degeneracy due to k-linear terms in the Hamiltonian in
combination with energy and momentum conservation and optical selection rules.