Epitaxial integration of the highly spin-polarized ferromagnetic semiconductor EuO with silicon and GaN.

نویسندگان

  • Andreas Schmehl
  • Venu Vaithyanathan
  • Alexander Herrnberger
  • Stefan Thiel
  • Christoph Richter
  • Marco Liberati
  • Tassilo Heeg
  • Martin Röckerath
  • Lena Fitting Kourkoutis
  • Sebastian Mühlbauer
  • Peter Böni
  • David A Muller
  • Yuri Barash
  • Jürgen Schubert
  • Yves Idzerda
  • Jochen Mannhart
  • Darrell G Schlom
چکیده

Doped EuO is an attractive material for the fabrication of proof-of-concept spintronic devices. Yet for decades its use has been hindered by its instability in air and the difficulty of preparing and patterning high-quality thin films. Here, we establish EuO as the pre-eminent material for the direct integration of a carrier-concentration-matched half-metal with the long-spin-lifetime semiconductors silicon and GaN, using methods that transcend these difficulties. Andreev reflection measurements reveal that the spin polarization in doped epitaxial EuO films exceeds 90%, demonstrating that EuO is a half-metal even when highly doped. Furthermore, EuO is epitaxially integrated with silicon and GaN. These results demonstrate the high potential of EuO for spintronic devices.

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عنوان ژورنال:
  • Nature materials

دوره 6 11  شماره 

صفحات  -

تاریخ انتشار 2007