Magneto-optical spectroscopy in combination with tunable laser excitation is employed to study exciton spin alignment and injection in ZnMnSe/ZnCdSe quantum structures. This approach enables us to selectively create preferred spin orientation and to separately monitor subsequent spin injection from individual spin states, thus shedding light on a possible source of spin loss. It is shown that the limited spin polarization in a nonmagnetic quantum well due to spin injection from a ZnMnSe-based diluted magnetic semiconductor (DMS) is not caused by a limited degree of spin alignment in the DMS, which is in fact complete, but rather occurs during subsequent processes.

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