1,639 research outputs found
Spin precession and inverted Hanle effect in a semiconductor near a finite-roughness ferromagnetic interface
Although the creation of spin polarization in various non-magnetic media via
electrical spin injection from a ferromagnetic tunnel contact has been
demonstrated, much of the basic behavior is heavily debated. It is reported
here for semiconductor/Al2O3/ferromagnet tunnel structures based on Si or GaAs
that local magnetostatic fields arising from interface roughness dramatically
alter and even dominate the accumulation and dynamics of spins in the
semiconductor. Spin precession in the inhomogeneous magnetic fields is shown to
reduce the spin accumulation up to tenfold, and causes it to be inhomogeneous
and non-collinear with the injector magnetization. The inverted Hanle effect
serves as experimental signature. This interaction needs to be taken into
account in the analysis of experimental data, particularly in extracting the
spin lifetime and its variation with different parameters (temperature, doping
concentration). It produces a broadening of the standard Hanle curve and
thereby an apparent reduction of the spin lifetime. For heavily doped n-type Si
at room temperature it is shown that the spin lifetime is larger than
previously determined, and a new lower bound of 0.29 ns is obtained. The
results are expected to be general and occur for spins near a magnetic
interface not only in semiconductors but also in metals, organic and
carbon-based materials including graphene, and in various spintronic device
structures.Comment: Final version, with text restructured and appendices added (25 pages,
9 figures). To appear in Phys. Rev.
Electrical spin injection and detection in Germanium using three terminal geometry
In this letter, we report on successful electrical spin injection and
detection in \textit{n}-type germanium-on-insulator (GOI) using a
Co/Py/AlO spin injector and 3-terminal non-local measurements. We
observe an enhanced spin accumulation signal of the order of 1 meV consistent
with the sequential tunneling process via interface states in the vicinity of
the AlO/Ge interface. This spin signal is further observable up to
220 K. Moreover, the presence of a strong \textit{inverted} Hanle effect points
at the influence of random fields arising from interface roughness on the
injected spins.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Electrical and thermal spin accumulation in germanium
In this letter, we first show electrical spin injection in the germanium
conduction band at room temperature and modulate the spin signal by applying a
gate voltage to the channel. The corresponding signal modulation agrees well
with the predictions of spin diffusion models. Then by setting a temperature
gradient between germanium and the ferromagnet, we create a thermal spin
accumulation in germanium without any tunnel charge current. We show that
temperature gradients yield larger spin accumulations than pure electrical spin
injection but, due to competing microscopic effects, the thermal spin
accumulation in germanium remains surprisingly almost unchanged under the
application of a gate voltage to the channel.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure
Crossover from spin accumulation into interface states to spin injection in the germanium conduction band
Electrical spin injection into semiconductors paves the way for exploring new
phenomena in the area of spin physics and new generations of spintronic
devices. However the exact role of interface states in spin injection mechanism
from a magnetic tunnel junction into a semiconductor is still under debate. In
this letter, we demonstrate a clear transition from spin accumulation into
interface states to spin injection in the conduction band of -Ge. We observe
spin signal amplification at low temperature due to spin accumulation into
interface states followed by a clear transition towards spin injection in the
conduction band from 200 K up to room temperature. In this regime, the spin
signal is reduced down to a value compatible with spin diffusion model. More
interestingly, we demonstrate in this regime a significant modulation of the
spin signal by spin pumping generated by ferromagnetic resonance and also by
applying a back-gate voltage which are clear manifestations of spin current and
accumulation in the germanium conduction band.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Influence of Co layer thickness on the structural and magnetic properties of multilayers
International audienceThe correlated effects of the insertion of a Pt spacer between ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic layers and of the variation of the Co layers thickness on the structural and magnetic properties of [ (Pt/Co tCo) 3 /Pt tPt /IrMn ] n multilayers have been studied. Samples with n = 1 and 7, t Co = 0.4 and 0.6 nm, t Pt = 0 and 0.4 nm have been investigated by tomographic atom probe and superconducting quantum interference device magnetometry. For spacer free samples (t Pt = 0), the structural investigation shows that when t Co = 0.4 nm, Mn and Ir atoms diffuse deeply in the (Pt/Co) multilayers. In contrast for t Co = 0.6 nm, the Mn and Ir diffusion is much reduced. Because Pt acts as a barrier against the Mn and Ir diffusion, this difference is less pronounced in samples with Pt insertion. The hysteresis loops shapes, the exchange bias fields and the saturation magnetization values were correlated with the structural properties of these samples and discussed, taking into account the susceptibility, exchange stiffness, and perpendicular magnetic anisotropy
Using Hyperfine Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Spectroscopy to Define the Proton-Coupled Electron Transfer Reaction at Fe-S Cluster N2 in Respiratory Complex I.
Energy-transducing respiratory complex I (NADH:ubiquinone oxidoreductase) is one of the largest and most complicated enzymes in mammalian cells. Here, we used hyperfine electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopic methods, combined with site-directed mutagenesis, to determine the mechanism of a single proton-coupled electron transfer reaction at one of eight iron-sulfur clusters in complex I, [4Fe-4S] cluster N2. N2 is the terminal cluster of the enzyme's intramolecular electron-transfer chain and the electron donor to ubiquinone. Because of its position and pH-dependent reduction potential, N2 has long been considered a candidate for the elusive "energy-coupling" site in complex I at which energy generated by the redox reaction is used to initiate proton translocation. Here, we used hyperfine sublevel correlation (HYSCORE) spectroscopy, including relaxation-filtered hyperfine and single-matched resonance transfer (SMART) HYSCORE, to detect two weakly coupled exchangeable protons near N2. We assign the larger coupling with A(1H) = [-3.0, -3.0, 8.7] MHz to the exchangeable proton of a conserved histidine and conclude that the histidine is hydrogen-bonded to N2, tuning its reduction potential. The histidine protonation state responds to the cluster oxidation state, but the two are not coupled sufficiently strongly to catalyze a stoichiometric and efficient energy transduction reaction. We thus exclude cluster N2, despite its proton-coupled electron transfer chemistry, as the energy-coupling site in complex I. Our work demonstrates the capability of pulse EPR methods for providing detailed information on the properties of individual protons in even the most challenging of energy-converting enzymes
Evolutionary Analysis of Mitogenomes from Parasitic and Free-Living Flatworms
Copyright: © 2015 Solà et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The attached file is the published version of the article
Quantifying the impact of BOReal forest fires on Tropospheric oxidants over the Atlantic using Aircraft and Satellites (BORTAS) experiment: design, execution and science overview
We describe the design and execution of the BORTAS (Quantifying the impact of BOReal forest fires on Tropospheric oxidants over the Atlantic using Aircraft and Satellites) experiment, which has the overarching objective of understanding the chemical aging of air masses that contain the emission products from seasonal boreal wildfires and how these air masses subsequently impact downwind atmospheric composition. The central focus of the experiment was a two-week deployment of the UK BAe-146-301 Atmospheric Research Aircraft (ARA) over eastern Canada, based out of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Atmospheric ground-based and sonde measurements over Canada and the Azores associated with the planned July 2010 deployment of the ARA, which was postponed by 12 months due to UK-based flights related to the dispersal of material emitted by the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, went ahead and constituted phase A of the experiment. Phase B of BORTAS in July 2011 involved the same atmospheric measurements, but included the ARA, special satellite observations and a more comprehensive ground-based measurement suite. The high-frequency aircraft data provided a comprehensive chemical snapshot of pyrogenic plumes from wildfires, corresponding to photochemical (and physical) ages ranging from 45 sr 10 days, largely by virtue of widespread fires over Northwestern Ontario. Airborne measurements reported a large number of emitted gases including semi-volatile species, some of which have not been been previously reported in pyrogenic plumes, with the corresponding emission ratios agreeing with previous work for common gases. Analysis of the NOy data shows evidence of net ozone production in pyrogenic plumes, controlled by aerosol abundance, which increases as a function of photochemical age. The coordinated ground-based and sonde data provided detailed but spatially limited information that put the aircraft data into context of the longer burning season in the boundary layer. Ground-based measurements of particulate matter smaller than 2.5 μm (PM2.5) over Halifax show that forest fires can on an episodic basis represent a substantial contribution to total surface PM2.5
Seebeck Effect in Magnetic Tunnel Junctions
Creating temperature gradients in magnetic nanostructures has resulted in a
new research direction, i.e., the combination of magneto- and thermoelectric
effects. Here, we demonstrate the observation of one important effect of this
class: the magneto-Seebeck effect. It is observed when a magnetic configuration
changes the charge based Seebeck coefficient. In particular, the Seebeck
coefficient changes during the transition from a parallel to an antiparallel
magnetic configuration in a tunnel junction. In that respect, it is the analog
to the tunneling magnetoresistance. The Seebeck coefficients in parallel and
antiparallel configuration are in the order of the voltages known from the
charge-Seebeck effect. The size and sign of the effect can be controlled by the
composition of the electrodes' atomic layers adjacent to the barrier and the
temperature. Experimentally, we realized 8.8 % magneto-Seebeck effect, which
results from a voltage change of about -8.7 {\mu}V/K from the antiparallel to
the parallel direction close to the predicted value of -12.1 {\mu}V/K.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, 2 table
A method for extracting calibrated volatility information from the FIGAERO-HR-ToF-CIMS and its experimental application
The Filter Inlet for Gases and AEROsols (FIGAERO) is an inlet specifically designed to be coupled with the Aerodyne High-Resolution Time-of-Flight Chemical Ionization Mass Spectrometer (HR-ToF-CIMS). The FIGAERO-HR-ToF-CIMS provides simultaneous molecular information relating to both the gas- and particle-phase samples and has been used to extract vapour pressures (VPs) of the compounds desorbing from the filter whilst giving quantitative concentrations in the particle phase. However, such extraction of vapour pressures of the measured particle-phase components requires use of appropriate, well-defined, reference compounds. Vapour pressures for the homologous series of polyethylene glycols (PEG) ((H-(O-CH2CH2)n-OH) for n = 3 to n = 8), covering a range of vapour pressures (VP) (10-1 to 10-7 Pa) that are atmospherically relevant, have been shown to be reproduced well by a range of different techniques, including Knudsen Effusion Mass Spectrometry (KEMS). This is the first homologous series of compounds for which a number of vapour pressure measurement techniques have been found to be in agreement, indicating the utility as a calibration standard, providing an ideal set of benchmark compounds for accurate characterization of the FIGAERO for extracting vapour pressure of measured compounds in chambers and the real atmosphere. To demonstrate this, single-component and mixture vapour pressure measurements are made using two FIGAERO-HR-ToF-CIMS instruments based on a new calibration determined from the PEG series. VP values extracted from both instruments agree well with those measured by KEMS and reported values from literature, validating this approach for extracting VP data from the FIGAERO. This method is then applied to chamber measurements, and the vapour pressures of known products are estimated
- …