Zeeman pattern of semimagnetic (CdMn)Te/(CdMg)Te quantum wells in inplane magnetic fields

Abstract The study of Cd 0.9 Mn 0.1 Te/Cd 0.6 Mg 0.4 Te quantum wells with semimagnetic well layers in inplane and perpendicular magnetic fields enables us to develop a general picture of the anisotropic Zeeman splitting in semimagnetic quantum wells. Due to quantum confinement and strain a two-dimensional spin quantization occurs, which gives rise to a vanishing spin splitting of heavy-hole states and a twice larger spin splitting of light-hole states for inplane magnetic fields. With increasing magnetic fields a reorientation of hole spins towards the magnetic field direction occurs due to the huge exchange splitting in semimagnetic layers. Investigating different width (CdMn)Te/(CdMg)Te quantum wells with thicknesses ranging from 100A down to 18A a significant dependence of the inplane Zeeman pattern on the well thickness is found. We demonstrate that the competition between initial quantization due to quantum confinement and the magnetic field induced exchange splitting defines the complex Zeeman pattern in inplane magnetic fields.