Effect of n+-GaAs thickness and doping density on spin injection of GaMnAs/n+-GaAs Esaki tunnel junction

We investigated the influence of n+-GaAs thickness and doping density of GaMnAs/n+-GaAs Esaki tunnel junction on the efficiency of the electrical electron spin injection. We prepared seven samples of GaMnAs/n+-GaAs tunnel junctions with different n+-GaAs thickness and doping density grown on identical p-AlGaAs/p-GaAs/n-AlGaAs light emitting diode (LED) structures. Electroluminescence (EL) polarization of the surface emission was measured under the Faraday configuration with external magnetic field. All samples have the bias dependence of the EL polarization, and higher EL polarization is obtained in samples in which n+-GaAs is completely depleted at zero bias. The EL polarization is found to be sensitive to the bias condition for both the (Ga,Mn)As/n+-GaAs tunnel junction and the LED structure.Comment: 4pages, 4figures, 1table, To appear in Physica

Modification of electronic surface states by graphene islands on Cu(111)

We present a study of graphene/substrate interactions on UHV-grown graphene islands with minimal surface contamination using \emph{in situ} low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). We compare the physical and electronic structure of the sample surface with atomic spatial resolution on graphene islands versus regions of bare Cu(111) substrate. We find that the Rydberg-like series of image potential states is shifted toward lower energy over the graphene islands relative to Cu(111), indicating a decrease in the local work function, and the resonances have a much smaller linewidth, indicating reduced coupling to the bulk. In addition, we show the dispersion of the occupied Cu(111) Shockley surface state is influenced by the graphene layer, and both the band edge and effective mass are shifted relative to bare Cu(111).Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure

Electrical spin injection from an organic-based ferrimagnet in a hybrid organic/inorganic heterostructure

We report the successful extraction of spin polarized current from the organic-based room temperature ferrimagnetic semiconductor V[TCNE]x (x~2, TCNE: tetracyanoethylene; TC ~ 400 K, EG ~ 0.5 eV, s ~ 10-2 S/cm) and its subsequent injection into a GaAs/AlGaAs light-emitting diode (LED). The spin current tracks the magnetization of V[TCNE]x~2, is weakly temperature dependent, and exhibits heavy hole / light hole asymmetry. This result has implications for room temperature spintronics and the use of inorganic materials to probe spin physics in organic and molecular systems