Correlating the interface structure to spin injection in abrupt Fe/GaAs(001) films

Luke Roger Fleet, Kenta Yoshida, Hiroomi Kobayashi, Y. Kaneko, S. Matsuzaka, Yuzo Ohno, Hideo Ohno, Syuta Honda, Junichiro Inoue, Atsufumi Hirohata

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

Abstract

Understanding the effect of the interface on electrical spin injection is of great importance for the development of semiconductor spintronics. Fe/GaAs(001) is one of the leading systems for exploring these effects due to the small lattice mismatch. We report on the correlation between the experimentally observed Fe/GaAs(001) interface with the spin-transport properties. Using high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy, we observe a predominantly abrupt interface with some regions of partial mixing also observed in the same film. We report that reproducible behavior with no bias-dependent polarization inversion was achieved for three-terminal devices. Using ab initio calculations of the experimentally observed interfaces, we show that the contribution to the transport from minority carriers is strongly dependent on the interface structure.
Original languageEnglish
Pages1-5
Number of pages5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2 Jan 2013

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