AVS 52nd International Symposium
    Electronic Materials and Processing Tuesday Sessions
       Session EM+MI-TuA

Invited Paper EM+MI-TuA5
Gate-Controlled Electron Spin Transport for Nonmagnetic Spintronics

Tuesday, November 1, 2005, 3:20 pm, Room 310

Session: Spin Injection
Presenter: K.C. Hall, Dalhousie University, Canada
Authors: K.C. Hall, Dalhousie University, Canada
K. Gundogdu, University of Iowa
J.L. Hicks, University of Iowa
A.N. Kocbay, University of Iowa
M.E. Flatte, University of Iowa
T.F. Boggess, University of Iowa
K. Holabird, HRL Laboratories, LLC
A. Hunter, HRL Laboratories, LLC
D.H. Chow, HRL Laboratories, LLC
J.J. Zinck, HRL Laboratories, LLC
Correspondent: Click to Email
The prospect of novel high-performance spin-based semiconductor technologies has lead to new research in spintronics, in which the fields of electronics, photonics, and magnetics merge with the promise of applications in ultra-low-power logic architectures, non-volatile reprogrammable gate arrays, and optoelectronic technologies. Innovation in these areas requires the development of efficient methods for spin injection and manipulation in semiconductor materials. Spintronic device architectures that do not require external magnetic fields or magnetic contacts are especially attractive as they would provide seamless integration with the materials and processing techniques of existing semiconductor devices, while avoiding undesirable stray magnetic fields that may hinder device performance. We show that highly spin-polarized electron spin injection may be achieved in side-gated resonant interband tunnel diodes (RITDs) based on nonmagnetic (110) InAs/GaSb/AlSb heterostructures.@footnote 1@ Due to the strong spin-orbit effects in this system, electron spin splittings due to bulk inversion asymmetry approach 40 meV, permitting operation of the spin-RITD at practical temperatures. A nonmagnetic spin field effect transistor incorporating RITD contacts and gate-controlled spin relaxation will be described, along with our recent experiments demonstrating low-threshold spin lifetime switching in this device.@footnote 2@@FootnoteText@This research is supported by DARPA MDA972-01-C-0002, DARPA/ARO DAAD19-01-1-0490, NSF ECS 03-22021, and NSERC. @footnote 1@K.C. Hall et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 83, 2937 (2003); @footnote 2@K.C. Hall et al., to be published in Appl. Phys. Lett. (2005).