Inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy of local "spin accumulation" devices

Abstract

We investigate the origin of purported "spin accumulation" signals observed in local "three-terminal" (3T) measurements of ferromagnet/insulator/n-Si tunnel junctions using inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy (IETS). Voltage bias and magnetic field dependences of the IET spectra were found to account for the dominant contribution to 3T magnetoresistance signals, thus indicating that it arises from inelastic tunneling through impurities and defects at junction interfaces and within the barrier, rather than from spin accumulation due to pure elastic tunneling into bulk Si as has been previously assumed.

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Cited by in corpus (10)

• An experimental demonstration of room-temperature spin transport in n-type Germanium epilayers
• Impurity-assisted tunneling magnetoresistance under weak magnetic field
• Resonant magneto-tunneling between normal and ferromagnetic electrodes in relation to the three-terminal spin transport
• Dynamic detection of electron spin accumulation in ferromagnet-semiconductor devices by ferromagnetic resonance
• Self-consistent model of spin accumulation magnetoresistance in ferromagnet-insulator-semiconductor tunnel junctions
• Non-linear spin transport in a rectifying ferromagnet/semiconductor Schottky contact
• Hot-electron effect in spin relaxation of electrically injected electrons in intrinsic Germanium
• Spincaloritronic signal generation in non-degenerate Si
• The shape of the Hanle curve in spin-transport structures in the presence of the ac drive
• Theory of oblique-field magnetoresistance from spin centers in three-terminal spintronic devices