Injection and detection of spin in a semiconductor by tunneling via interface states

Abstract

Injection and detection of spin accumulation in a semiconductor having localized states at the interface is evaluated. Spin transport from a ferromagnetic contact by sequential, two-step tunneling via interface states is treated not in itself, but in parallel with direct tunneling. The spin accumulation induced in the semiconductor channel is not suppressed, as previously argued, but genuinely enhanced by the additional spin current via interface states. Spin detection with a ferromagnetic contact yields a weighted average of the spin accumulation in the channel and in the localized states. In the regime where the spin accumulation in the localized states is much larger than that in the channel, the detected spin signal is insensitive to the spin accumulation in the localized states and the ferromagnet probes the spin accumulation in the semiconductor channel.

7 pages, 2 figures. Theory only

References in corpus (5)

• Semiconductors between spin-polarized source and drain
• Electrical spin injection and accumulation in CoFe/MgO/Ge contacts at room temperature
• Reversal of spin polarization in Fe/GaAs (001) driven by resonant surface states: First-principles calculations
• Electric-field control of spin accumulation signals in silicon at room temperature
• Spin Accumulation in Nondegenerate and Heavily Doped p-Type Germanium

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• Resonant magneto-tunneling between normal and ferromagnetic electrodes in relation to the three-terminal spin transport
• Self-consistent model of spin accumulation magnetoresistance in ferromagnet-insulator-semiconductor tunnel junctions
• Electrical detection of spin-polarized current in topological insulator Bi1.5Sb0.5Te1.7Se1.3
• Non-linear spin transport in a rectifying ferromagnet/semiconductor Schottky contact
• On the origin of the giant spin detection efficiency in tunnel barrier based electrical spin detector
• Effects of interface electric field on the magnetoresistance in spin device
• Correlation effects in disordered conductors with spin accumulation