AVS 47th International Symposium
    Magnetic Interfaces and Nanostructures Wednesday Sessions
       Session MI+EL-WeA

Paper MI+EL-WeA3
MBE Growth of Ni@sub 2@MnIn/InAs (001) Heterostructure

Wednesday, October 4, 2000, 2:40 pm, Room 206

Session: Magnetic Semiconductors and Hybrid Structures II
Presenter: J.Q. Xie, University of Minnesota
Authors: J.Q. Xie, University of Minnesota
J.W. Dong, University of Minnesota
L.C. Chen, University of Minnesota
J. Lu, University of Minnesota
C.J. Palmstrom, University of Minnesota
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InAs is the semiconductor of choice for spintronic applications due to the ease of forming ohmic contacts and its high electron mobility. The former arises from the fact that the Fermi level tends to be pinned in the conduction band at the metal/InAs interface. Although no elemental ferromagnetic metals are lattice matched to InAs, Ni@sub 2@MnIn is nearly lattice matched. In the bulk, stoichiometric Ni@sub 2@MnIn is ferromagnetic at room temperature and has the cubic L2@sub 1@ Heusler structure with a lattice parameter 0.2% larger than that of InAs. In this talk, we report on the growth of ferromagnetic Ni@sub 2@MnIn films on (001) InAs by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Both in situ reflection high energy electron diffraction and ex situ X-ray diffraction measurements indicate that Ni@sub 2@MnIn films grow epitaxially on MBE-grown (001) InAs substrates. Vibrating sample magnetometer and superconducting quantum interference device magnetometer measurements show that the deposited films are ferromagnetic with a Curie temperature ~300 K. Our initial results indicate that Ni@sub 2@MnIn grows in a hexagonal Ni@sub 2@In@sub 3@-type structure, which probably results from either interfacial chemistry or composition. In this talk, the effects of interfacial layers on the growth, structure and magnetic properties of Ni@sub 2@MnIn thin films will be discussed.