Comparison of Fe/Schottky and Fe/Al2O3 tunnel barrier contacts for electrical spin injection into GaAs
- 7 May 2004
- journal article
- Published by AIP Publishing in Applied Physics Letters
- Vol. 84 (21), 4334-4336
- https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1758305
Abstract
We compare electrical spin injection from Fe films into identical GaAs-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) using different tunnel barriers—a reverse-biased Fe/AlGaAs Schottky contact and an barrier. Both types of structures are formed in situ using a multichamber molecular-beam epitaxy system. A detailed analysis of the transport data confirms that tunneling occurs in each case. We find that the spin polarization achieved in the GaAs using the barrier is 40% (best case; 30% typical), but the electrical efficiency is significantly lower than that of the Fe Schottky contact.
Keywords
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