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The Dyakonov-Perel (DP) mechanism of spin relaxation has long been considered irrelevant in centrosymmetric systems since it was developed originally for noncentrosymmetric ones. We investigate whether this conventional understanding extends to the realm of orbital relaxation, which has recently attracted significant attention. Surprisingly, we find that orbital relaxation in centrosymmetric systems exhibits the DP-like behavior in the weak scattering regime. Moreover, the DP-like orbital relaxation can make the spin relaxation in centrosymmetric systems DP-like through the spin-orbit coupling. We also find that the DP-like orbital and spin relaxations are anisotropic even in materials with high crystal symmetry (such as face-centered cubic structure) and may depend on the orbital and spin nature of electron wave functions.Received 16 April 2024Accepted 15 May 2024DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.246301© 2024 American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasGiant magnetoresistanceSpin dynamicsSpin relaxationSpin-orbit couplingTechniquesLuttinger–Kohn modelCondensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics
Sohn et al. (Mon,) studied this question.