Enhanced carrier scattering rates in dilute magnetic semiconductors with correlated impurities

Abstract

In III-V dilute magnetic semiconductors (DMSs) such as Ga${}_{1-x}$Mn${}_x$As, the impurity positions tend to be correlated, which can drastically affect the electronic transport properties of these materials. Within the memory function formalism we have derived a general expression for the current relaxation kernel in spin and charge disordered media and have calculated spin and charge scattering rates in the weak-disorder limit. Using a simple model for magnetic impurity clustering, we find a significant enhancement of the charge scattering. The enhancement is sensitive to cluster parameters and may be controllable through post-growth annealing.

4 pages, 3 figures