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Circularly polarized photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy measured at 19 K on GaAs/AlGaAs symmetric and asymmetric double quantum wells (DQW) is reported. The PL is obtained by exciting the sample with a circularly polarized (left or right) laser in order to create an initial unbalanced distribution of electron spins in the conduction band and, in this way, obtain the electron spin lifetime $\tau_s$. The effects of the excitation laser wavelength were estimated by exciting with laser wavelengths of 701.0 nm, 787.0 nm, 801.5 nm and 806.5 nm. The increase of $\tau_s$ with the excitation wavelength is attributed to the lower initial quasi-momentum $\bf{k}$ of the excited carriers, which also reduces spin-orbit relaxation processes. $\tau_s$ was found to be higher in asymmetric DQWs: this is attributed to the wider QWs in these samples, which reduces spin relaxation due to the Dresselhaus mechanism. In addition, we also detected a smaller contribution from the Rashba mechanism by comparing samples with built-in electric fields of different orientations defined by doped barrier layers., Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures

In the present work, we were able to identify and characterize a new source of in-plane optical anisotropies (IOAs) occurring in asymmetric DQWs; namely a reduction of the symmetry from $D_{2d}$ to $C_{2v}$ as imposed by asymmetry along the growth direction. We report on reflectance anisotropy spectroscopy (RAS) of double GaAs quantum wells (DQWs) structures coupled by a thin ($<2$ nm) tunneling barrier. Two groups of DQWs systems were studied: one where both QWs have the same thickness (symmetric DQW) and another one where they have different thicknesses (asymmetric DQW). RAS measures the IOAs arising from the intermixing of the heavy- and light- holes in the valence band when the symmetry of the DQW system is lowered from $D_{2d}$ to $C_{2v}$. If the DQW is symmetric, residual IOAs stem from the asymmetry of the QW interfaces; for instance, associated to Ga segregation into the AlGaAs layer during the epitaxial growth process. In the case of an asymmetric DQW with QWs with different thicknesses, the AlGaAs layers (that are sources of anisotropies) are not distributed symmetrically at both sides of the tunneling barrier. Thus, the system losses its inversion symmetry yielding an increase of the RAS strength. The RAS line shapes were compared with reflectance spectra in order to assess the heavy- and light- hole mixing induced by the symmetry breakdown. The energies of the optical transitions were calculated by numerically solving the one-dimensional Schr\"odinger equation using a finite-differences method. Our results are useful for interpretation of the transitions occurring in both, symmetric and asymmetric DQWs.