journal article·2007-11

Epitaxial integration of the highly spin-polarized ferromagnetic semiconductor EuO with silicon and GaN

Andreas Schmehl, Venu Vaithyanathan, Alexander Herrnberger, Stefan Thiel, Christoph Richter, Marco Liberati, Tassilo Heeg, Martin Röckerath, Lena Fitting Kourkoutis, Sebastian Mühlbauer, Peter Böni, David A. Muller, Yuri Barash, Jürgen Schubert, Yves Idzerda, Jochen Mannhart, Darrell G. Schlom

Nature Materials· Volume 6· Issue 11
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Abstract

Doped EuO is an attractive material for the fabrication of proof-of-concept spintronic devices. Yet for decades its use has been hindered by its instability in air and the difficulty of preparing and patterning high-quality thin films. Here, we establish EuO as the pre-eminent material for the direct integration of a carrier-concentration-matched half-metal with the long-spin-lifetime semiconductors silicon and GaN, using methods that transcend these difficulties. Andreev reflection measurements reveal that the spin polarization in doped epitaxial EuO films exceeds 90%, demonstrating that EuO is a half-metal even when highly doped. Furthermore, EuO is epitaxially integrated with silicon and GaN. These results demonstrate the high potential of EuO for spintronic devices.
Source: europepmc · Quality: candidate unverified · Source record ↗

Research context

OpenAlex topics: Rare-earth and actinide compounds · Magnetic and transport properties of perovskites and related materials · Heusler alloys: electronic and magnetic properties

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

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