Optically induced spin polarisation in semimagnetic semiconductors

The kinetics of spin polarisation of free charge carriers and magnetic ions in semimagnetic semiconductors irradiated by polarised light is studied. The magnetisation arising in the sample under polarised light optical pumping turns out to be anomalously small. It is shown that the dominating relaxation mechanism of magnetic ions in such materials is the exchange scattering of holes with magnetic impurity ions.