1,316 research outputs found
Magnetic interactions of substitutional Mn pairs in GaAs
We employ a kinetic-exchange tight-binding model to calculate the magnetic
interaction and anisotropy energies of a pair of substitutional Mn atoms in
GaAs as a function of their separation distance and direction. We find that the
most energetically stable configuration is usually one in which the spins are
ferromagnetically aligned along the vector connecting the Mn atoms. The
ferromagnetic configuration is characterized by a splitting of the topmost
unoccupied acceptor levels, which is visible in scanning tunneling microscope
studies when the pair is close to the surface and is strongly dependent on pair
orientation. The largest acceptor splittings occur when the Mn pair is oriented
along the symmetry direction, and the smallest when they are oriented
along . We show explicitly that the acceptor splitting is not simply
related to the effective exchange interaction between the Mn local moments. The
exchange interaction constant is instead more directly related to the width of
the distribution of all impurity levels -- occupied and unoccupied. When the Mn
pair is at the (110) GaAs surface, both acceptor splitting and effective
exchange interaction are very small except for the smallest possible Mn
separation.Comment: 25 figure
Thickness dependence of magnetic properties of (Ga,Mn)As
We report on a monotonic reduction of Curie temperature in dilute
ferromagnetic semiconductor (Ga,Mn)As upon a well controlled
chemical-etching/oxidizing thinning from 15 nm down to complete removal of the
ferro- magnetic response. The effect already starts at the very beginning of
the thinning process and is accompanied by the spin reorientation transition of
the in-plane uniaxial anisotropy. We postulate that a negative gradient along
the growth direction of self-compensating defects (Mn interstitial) and the
presence of surface donor traps gives quantitative account on these effects
within the p-d mean field Zener model with adequate mod- ifications to take a
nonuniform distribution of holes and Mn cations into account. The described
here effects are of practical importance for employing thin and ultrathin
layers of (Ga,Mn)As or relative compounds in concept spintronics devices, like
resonant tunneling devices in particular.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures and supplementary information 2 pages, 1 figur
Cubic anisotropy in high homogeneity thin (Ga,Mn)As layers
Historically, comprehensive studies of dilute ferromagnetic semiconductors,
e.g., -type (Cd,Mn)Te and (Ga,Mn)As, paved the way for a quantitative
theoretical description of effects associated with spin-orbit interactions in
solids, such as crystalline magnetic anisotropy. In particular, the theory was
successful in explaining {\em uniaxial} magnetic anisotropies associated with
biaxial strain and non-random formation of magnetic dimers in epitaxial
(Ga,Mn)As layers. However, the situation appears much less settled in the case
of the {\em cubic} term: the theory predicts switchings of the easy axis
between in-plane and directions as a
function of the hole concentration, whereas only the
orientation has been found experimentally. Here, we report on the observation
of such switchings by magnetization and ferromagnetic resonance studies on a
series of high-crystalline quality (Ga,Mn)As films. We describe our findings by
the mean-field - Zener model augmented with three new ingredients. The
first one is a scattering broadening of the hole density of states, which
reduces significantly the amplitude of the alternating carrier-induced
contribution. This opens the way for the two other ingredients, namely the
so-far disregarded single-ion magnetic anisotropy and disorder-driven
non-uniformities of the carrier density, both favoring the
direction of the apparent easy axis. However, according to our results, when
the disorder gets reduced a switching to the orientation
is possible in a certain temperature and hole concentration range.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figure
Performance of the ATLAS Precision Muon Chambers under LHC Operating Conditions
For the muon spectrometer of the ATLAS detector at the large hadron collider
(LHC), large drift chambers consisting of 6 to 8 layers of pressurized drift
tubes are used for precision tracking covering an active area of 5000 m2 in the
toroidal field of superconducting air core magnets. The chambers have to
provide a spatial resolution of 41 microns with Ar:CO2 (93:7) gas mixture at an
absolute pressure of 3 bar and gas gain of 2?104. The environment in which the
chambers will be operated is characterized by high neutron and background with
counting rates of up to 100 per square cm and second. The resolution and
efficiency of a chamber from the serial production for ATLAS has been
investigated in a 100 GeV muon beam at photon irradiation rates as expected
during LHC operation. A silicon strip detector telescope was used as external
reference in the beam. The spatial resolution of a chamber is degraded by 4 ?m
at the highest background rate. The detection efficiency of the drift tubes is
unchanged under irradiation. A tracking efficiency of 98% at the highest rates
has been demonstrated
Voltage controlled spin injection in a (Ga,Mn)As/(Al,Ga)As Zener diode
The spin polarization of the electron current in a
p-(Ga,Mn)As-n-(Al,Ga)As-Zener tunnel diode, which is embedded in a
light-emitting diode, has been studied theoretically. A series of
self-consistent simulations determines the charge distribution, the band
bending, and the current-voltage characteristics for the entire structure. An
empirical tight-binding model, together with the Landauer- Buttiker theory of
coherent transport has been developed to study the current spin polarization.
This dual approach allows to explain the experimentally observed high magnitude
and strong bias dependence of the current spin polarization.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. B Rapid Communication
Construction and Test of MDT Chambers for the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer
The Monitored Drift Tube (MDT) chambers for the muon spectrometer of the AT-
LAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) consist of 3-4 layers of
pressurized drift tubes on either side of a space frame carrying an optical
monitoring system to correct for deformations. The full-scale prototype of a
large MDT chamber has been constructed with methods suitable for large-scale
production. X-ray measurements at CERN showed a positioning accuracy of the
sense wires in the chamber of better than the required 20 ?microns (rms). The
performance of the chamber was studied in a muon beam at CERN. Chamber
production for ATLAS now has started
Anomalous behavior of spin wave resonances in Ga_{1-x}Mn_{x}As thin films
We report ferromagnetic and spin wave resonance absorption measurements on
high quality epitaxially grown Ga_{1-x}Mn_{x}As thin films. We find that these
films exhibit robust ferromagnetic long-range order, based on the fact that up
to seven resonances are detected at low temperatures, and the resonance
structure survives to temperatures close to the ferromagnetic transition. On
the other hand, we observe a spin wave dispersion which is linear in mode
number, in qualitative contrast with the quadratic dispersion expected for
homogeneous samples. We perform a detailed numerical analysis of the
experimental data and provide analytical calculations to demonstrate that such
a linear dispersion is incompatible with uniform magnetic parameters. Our
theoretical analysis of the ferromagnetic resonance data, combined with the
knowledge that strain-induced anisotropy is definitely present in these films,
suggests that a spatially dependent magnetic anisotropy is the most likely
reason behind the anomalous behavior observed.Comment: 9 pages, including 6 figure
Ferromagnetic semiconductors
The current status and prospects of research on ferromagnetism in
semiconductors are reviewed. The question of the origin of ferromagnetism in
europium chalcogenides, chromium spinels and, particularly, in diluted magnetic
semiconductors is addressed. The nature of electronic states derived from 3d of
magnetic impurities is discussed in some details. Results of a quantitative
comparison between experimental and theoretical results, notably for Mn-based
III-V and II-VI compounds, are presented. This comparison demonstrates that the
current theory of the exchange interactions mediated by holes in the valence
band describes correctly the values of Curie temperatures T_C magnetic
anisotropy, domain structure, and magnetic circular dichroism. On this basis,
chemical trends are examined and show to lead to the prediction of
semiconductor systems with T_C that may exceed room temperature, an expectation
that are being confirmed by recent findings. Results for materials containing
magnetic ions other than Mn are also presented emphasizing that the double
exchange involving hoping through d states may operate in those systems.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures; special issue of Semicon. Sci. Technol. on
semiconductor spintronic
Electronic structure and magnetism of Mn doped GaN
Mn doped semiconductors are extremely interesting systems due to their novel
magnetic properties suitable for the spintronics applications. It has been
shown recently by both theory and experiment that Mn doped GaN systems have a
very high Curie temperature compared to that of Mn doped GaAs systems. To
understand the electronic and magnetic properties, we have studied Mn doped GaN
system in detail by a first principles plane wave method. We show here the
effect of varying Mn concentration on the electronic and magnetic properties.
For dilute Mn concentration, states of Mn form an impurity band completely
separated from the valence band states of the host GaN. This is in contrast to
the Mn doped GaAs system where Mn states in the gap lie very close to the
valence band edge and hybridizes strongly with the delocalized valence band
states.
To study the effects of electron correlation, LSDA+U calculations have been
performed.
Calculated exchange interaction in (Mn,Ga)N is short ranged in contrary to
that in (Mn,Ga)As where the strength of the ferromagnetic coupling between Mn
spins is not decreased substantially for large Mn-Mn separation. Also, the
exchange interactions are anisotropic in different crystallographic directions
due to the presence or absence of connectivity between Mn atoms through As
bonds.Comment: 6 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
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