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.

References in corpus (4)

• Electronic measurement and control of spin transport in Silicon
• Coherent spin transport through a 350-micron-thick Silicon wafer
• Semiconductors between spin-polarized source and drain
• The Larmor clock and anomalous spin dephasing in silicon

Cited by in corpus (5)

• An experimental demonstration of room-temperature spin transport in n-type Germanium epilayers
• Impurity-assisted tunneling magnetoresistance under weak magnetic field
• Self-consistent model of spin accumulation magnetoresistance in ferromagnet-insulator-semiconductor tunnel junctions
• Hot-electron effect in spin relaxation of electrically injected electrons in intrinsic Germanium
• The shape of the Hanle curve in spin-transport structures in the presence of the ac drive