Theory Of The Time-Resolved Kerr Rotation In Ensembles Of Trapped Holes In Semiconductor Nanostructures

We formulate a model of the time-resolved Kerr rotation experiment on an ensemble of independent holes in a semiconductor nanostructure (e.g., confined in a quantum dot or trapped in a quantum well) in a tilted magnetic field. We use a generic Markovian description of the hole and trion dephasing and focus on the interpretation of the time-resolved signal in terms of the microscopic evolution of the spin polarization. We show that the signal in an off-plane field contains components that reveal both the spin relaxation rate and the spin coherence dephasing rate. We derive analytical formulas for the hole spin polarization, which may be used to extract the two relevant rates by fitting to the measurement data.