200 research outputs found
Spin-dependent phenomena and device concepts explored in (Ga,Mn)As
Over the past two decades, the research of (Ga,Mn)As has led to a deeper
understanding of relativistic spin-dependent phenomena in magnetic systems. It
has also led to discoveries of new effects and demonstrations of unprecedented
functionalities of experimental spintronic devices with general applicability
to a wide range of materials. In this article we review the basic material
properties that make (Ga,Mn)As a favorable test-bed system for spintronics
research and discuss contributions of (Ga,Mn)As studies in the general context
of the spin-dependent phenomena and device concepts. Special focus is on the
spin-orbit coupling induced effects and the reviewed topics include the
interaction of spin with electrical current, light, and heat.Comment: 47 pages, 41 figure
Anisotropic magnetoresistance in a 2DEG in a quasi-random magnetic field
We present magnetotransport results for a 2D electron gas (2DEG) subject to
the quasi-random magnetic field produced by randomly positioned sub-micron Co
dots deposited onto the surface of a GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure. We observe
strong local and non-local anisotropic magnetoresistance for external magnetic
fields in the plane of the 2DEG. Monte-Carlo calculations confirm that this is
due to the changing topology of the quasi-random magnetic field in which
electrons are guided predominantly along contours of zero magnetic field.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Voltage control of magnetocrystalline anisotropy in ferromagnetic - semiconductor/piezoelectric hybrid structures
We demonstrate dynamic voltage control of the magnetic anisotropy of a
(Ga,Mn)As device bonded to a piezoelectric transducer. The application of a
uniaxial strain leads to a large reorientation of the magnetic easy axis which
is detected by measuring longitudinal and transverse anisotropic
magnetoresistance coefficients. Calculations based on the mean-field
kinetic-exchange model of (Ga,Mn)As provide microscopic understanding of the
measured effect. Electrically induced magnetization switching and detection of
unconventional crystalline components of the anisotropic magnetoresistance are
presented, illustrating the generic utility of the piezo voltage control to
provide new device functionalities and in the research of micromagnetic and
magnetotransport phenomena in diluted magnetic semiconductors.Comment: Submitted to Physical Review Letters. Updates version 1 to include a
more detailed discussion of the effect of strain on the anisotropic
magnetoresistanc
Lithographically and electrically controlled strain effects on anisotropic magnetoresistance in (Ga,Mn)As
It has been demonstrated that magnetocrystalline anisotropies in (Ga,Mn)As
are sensitive to lattice strains as small as 10^-4 and that strain can be
controlled by lattice parameter engineering during growth, through post growth
lithography, and electrically by bonding the (Ga,Mn)As sample to a
piezoelectric transducer. In this work we show that analogous effects are
observed in crystalline components of the anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR).
Lithographically or electrically induced strain variations can produce
crystalline AMR components which are larger than the crystalline AMR and a
significant fraction of the total AMR of the unprocessed (Ga,Mn)As material. In
these experiments we also observe new higher order terms in the
phenomenological AMR expressions and find that strain variation effects can
play important role in the micromagnetic and magnetotransport characteristics
of (Ga,Mn)As lateral nanoconstrictions.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, references fixe
Microscopic analysis of the valence band and impurity band theories of (Ga,Mn)As
We analyze microscopically the valence and impurity band models of
ferromagnetic (Ga,Mn)As. We find that the tight-binding Anderson approach with
conventional parameterization and the full potential LDA+U calculations give a
very similar picture of states near the Fermi energy which reside in an
exchange-split sp-d hybridized valence band with dominant orbital character of
the host semiconductor; this microscopic spectral character is consistent with
the physical premise of the k.p kinetic-exchange model. On the other hand, the
various models with a band structure comprising an impurity band detached from
the valence band assume mutually incompatible microscopic spectral character.
By adapting the tight-binding Anderson calculations individually to each of the
impurity band pictures in the single Mn impurity limit and then by exploring
the entire doping range we find that a detached impurity band does not persist
in any of these models in ferromagnetic (Ga,Mn)As.Comment: 29 pages, 25 figure
- …