A distinguishing feature of spin accumulation in ferromagnet-semiconductor
devices is precession of the non-equilibrium spin population of the
semiconductor in a magnetic field. This is the basis for detection techniques
such as the Hanle effect, but these approaches become less effective as the
spin lifetime in the semiconductor decreases. For this reason, no electrical
Hanle measurement has been demonstrated in GaAs at room temperature. We show
here that by forcing the magnetization in the ferromagnet (the spin injector
and detector) to precess at the ferromagnetic resonance frequency, an
electrically generated spin accumulation can be detected from 30 to 300 K. At
low temperatures, the distinct Larmor precession of the spin accumulation in
the semiconductor can be detected by ferromagnetic resonance in an oblique
field. We verify the effectiveness of this new spin detection technique by
comparing the injection bias and temperature dependence of the measured spin
signal to the results obtained using traditional methods. We further show that
this new approach enables a measurement of short spin lifetimes (< 100 psec), a
regime that is not accessible in semiconductors using traditional Hanle
techniques.Comment: 4 figure
