Ferromagnetic semiconductors for spintronics

Kevin Edmonds, Kaiyou Wang, Richard Campion, Devin Giddings, Nicola Farley, Tom Foxon, Bryan Gallagher, Tomas Jungwirth School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Nottingham Mike Sawicki, Tomasz Dietl IFPAN, Warsaw, Poland Tarnjit Johal, Gerrit van der Laan Daresbury Laboratory

Semiconductor spintronics
Electron Spin Electron Charge

Semiconductor Spintronics

Photon Polarisation

Benefits:

Fast, small, low dissipation devices Quantum computation? New physics

(Ga,Mn)As
H. Ohno et al. (1996): ferromagnetism in GaAs thin films doped ~5% with Mn

Magnetic Polarisation

Magnetic Field Strength

Growth by low temperature MBE to beat equilibrium solubility limit

Carrier-mediated ferromagnetism
Substitutional Mn is an acceptor and a J=5/2 magnetic moment. 5 2 Ferromagnetism driven by antiferromagnetic exchange coupling
Mn: [Ar] 3d 4s Ga: [Ar] 3d10 4s2 4p1 Mn

Jp-d S.s

between Mn moments and spinpolarised GaAs valence electrons Carrier density determines the key magnetic properties of (Ga,Mn)As (e.g. TC, HC,...)

Carrier-mediated ferromagnetism
H. Ohno et al., Nature (2000)

Spin-FET

Photogenerated magnetism Koshihara

PRL (1997)

Vgate

InMnAs GaSb

InMnAs

B (mT)

Curie temperatures
15

/cc)
20

annealed

200

10 (x10

(K)
100

Zener mean-field prediction (parameterfree)

5 as-grown

Curie temp.

Carrier density
0 0

Mn concentration (%)

0 0

Mn concentration (%)

Max. TC=172K (so far...)

Wang et al., JAP 04

Interstitial Mn: magnetism killer

Mn As Yu et al., PRB 02:

~10-20% of total Mn concentration is incorporated as interstitials Increased TC on annealing corresponds to removal of these defects.

Negative effects on magnetic order: compensating donor reduces hole density

antiferromagnetic coupling between interstitial and

substitutional Mn predicted Blinowski PRB 03

1D diffusion process
cm) 3.2

T=190oC

2.8 2.4

Diffusion to free surface - activation energy 0.7eV

Resistivity (m 1.6 ) 10 100 1 1 Time (hours) 60

1 1

2.0

40

20(

L=100 nm L=50 nm L=25 nm L=10 nm

/ d N O Mn Ga As

0 d(1/ 0.00

)/

()
2 2 t / L (hours / nm )

0.02

0.04

Edmonds, Bogusawski et al., PRL 92, 037201 (2004)

Magnetic moment and antiferromagnetic coupling

X-ray absorption measurements, ALS line 4.0.2 and ESRF line ID8:
20

(Ga,Mn)As annealed

20

(Ga,Mn)As as-grown

10

10
summed XAS

absorption (a.u.)
0 640 650

summed XAS XMCD XMLD

0 640 650

XMCD

660

660

Photon energy (eV)

Photon energy (eV)

XMCD asymmetry 55% Magnetic moment 4.5 B

XMCD asymmetry 30% Magnetic moment 2.3 B

Ferromagnetic moment vs. field in unannealed film at 6K:

5

annealed
4
3

/)

B5/2(6K) as-grown B5/2(28K)

1 2 3 4 5

B=2T B=5T

( + 2

1 0 0

640

X-ray energy (eV)

650

()

AF coupling described by Teff = T + TAF = (6+22)K

Ferromagnetic semiconductor heterostructures

Protocols for growth of semiconductor heterostructures are well-established Addition of spin gives a new degree of freedom e.g. tunnelling structure
)

R (
-0.1 0.0 0.1

(Ga,Mn)As AlAs (Ga,Mn)As

()

Tanaka et al. (2001) 70% TMR Chiba et al. (2003) 400% Rster et al. (2004) >100,000% !!

Tunnelling Anisotropic Magnetoresistance

Au (Ga,Mn)As Gould et al., PRL (2004) TMR-like signal with in control sample with only one ferromagnetic contact Tunnelling probability depends on magnetisation direction of single layer (two step reversal process) AlOx
[100] [100] [110]

Anisotropic magnetoresistance
Magnetoresistance on rotating M away from x direction - strong function of Mn concentration, well described by mean-field model
320
8

exper. AMR . // //

R(

(%)

315 -0.5 0.0 0.5

0 0

(%)

10

()

Jungwirth et al. APL 03

TAMR in Nanoconstrictions

5nm (Ga,Mn)As film with 30nm wide constrictions Giant anisotropic magnetoresistance ~100% in tunnelling regime Giddings et al., cond-mat/0409209
10K 4.2K 1.5K

I [nA]

V [mV]

Prospects for room temperature ferromagnetism

300K! Predicted TC in (III,Mn)V semiconductors,
Ge

if Mn is a shallow acceptor

GaAs GaSb InAs

CB Mn 3d VB
GaSb GaAs GaP GaN

T. Dietl, Science 00; JVSTB 03

Ga1-xMnxN
1 0
3

Ga1-xMnxN x=0.3%

-1 -2 -3M (emu/cm -4 -5 -50 -40 -30 -20

T = 400 K T = 10 K T= 8 K T= 6 K T= 4 K

Small RT ferromagnetic signal superimposed on larger paramagnetic part

(Sonoda 01; Reed 01; Thaler 02; Biquard 03 etc.)

H (kOe)

-10

Most are n-type results are inconsistent with carrier-mediated ferromagnetism

Dietl Science 00

Several MnxNy magnetic phases exist

Zajac et al. 03

Phase segregation?

Cubic (Ga,Mn)N: a key to p-type conductivity

Wurtzite (Ga,Mn)N is usually n-type; Mn ionisation energy ~1.4eV
(Graf et al APL (2002))

But in zincblende (Ga,Mn)N/GaAs we observe robust p-type behaviour Ea~50meV

1E18
70 60

50
40

()

Evidence for collective magnetic effects at low T:

Graph26

1E17 (

(%)
3

4 3 2 1 0

0.2% 4.2% 2.5%

0.005 0.010 0.015
1

T = 5 / 15 / 50 K

1E16

Moment [ emu/cm

0.000

1/ ( )

0.020

0.025

-1 0
.OPJ 25/03/04 12:20:16

Novikov et al. Semicond. Sci. Tech. (2004)

Magnetic Field [ Oe ]

1000

2000

3000

4000

Conclusions
GaAs doped with ~% Mn is ferromagnetic a model
system for investigating magnetic phenomena in semiconductors - gate controlled magnetism - tunnelling magnetoresistance - new tunnelling effects

prospects for semiconductors with room temperature

ferromagnetism but phase segregation may be an issue

Magnetic anisotropy
B// B

Magnetisation (a.u.)
-0.6 -0.3 0.0 0.3 0.6

Strong cubic anisotropy with <100> easy axes, reduced to biaxial (in-plane) or uniaxial (perpendicular) due to strain. Weaker uniaxial anisotropy between in-plane [110] and [110] orientations, origin unknown.

Field (T)

Magnetic anisotropy rotation

In-plane uniaxial easy axis rotates from [110] to [110] on increasing the carrier density above ~6 x 1020 cm-3 by annealing. Sawicki et al., PRB (submitted)
-3

) 1.5
easy axis [110]
1.0

0.5

Carrier density (nm

easy axis [110 ]
5 0.0 0

Mn concentration (%)

10