Excitonic magnetic polarons and their formation dynamics

Already early observations of an exciton magnetic polarons in Mn-based semimagnetic semiconductors implied that the polaron formation time was shorter than the exciton lifetime. A brief review is given on exciton self-trapping, and mechanisms that account for fast dynamics of spin organization inside exciton localization volume. Theoretical expectations are compared to results of recent experiments on time-resolved luminescence and SQUID magnetometry of bulk and layered semimagnetic semiconductors. (orig.)