AVS 53rd International Symposium
    Magnetic Interfaces and Nanostructures Tuesday Sessions
       Session MI-TuA

Paper MI-TuA8
Growth and Magnetic Properties of Ferrimagnetic Mn@sub 4@N(111) Films on GaN(0001)

Tuesday, November 14, 2006, 4:20 pm, Room 2006

Session: Magnetic Thin Films and Multilayers
Presenter: R. Yang, Ohio University
Authors: R. Yang, Ohio University
E. Lu, Ohio University
M.B. Haider, Ohio University
A.R. Smith, Ohio University
F.Y. Yang, Ohio State University
Correspondent: Click to Email
Heteroepitaxial growth of ferromagnet/semiconductor (FM/SC) bilayers is a topic of high importance because of the potential for spin injection systems.@footnote 1@ The FM/GaN is a system of particular interest due to the possibility to grow spin-polarized blue and ultra-violet light emitters. If we broaden this from FM@super '@s to include ferri-magnets (FiM@super '@s) having non-zero magnetization, then Mn@sub 4@N is a promising candidate since it allows to maintain a common nitrogen-bonded system for both magnetic and SC layers. Mn@sub 4@N is a FiM material with a Curie temperature of 738K and an effective moment of 1.0-1.2 uB per unit cell.@footnote 2@ Using a rf N-plasma molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) system, we have successfully grown Mn@sub 4@N films on GaN(0001). The growth is monitored by reflection high-energy electron diffraction (RHEED). Streaky RHEED patterns indicate a smooth Mn@sub 4@N surface. RHEED and x-ray diffraction (XRD) results confirm that the epitaxial Mn@sub 4@N thin films have (111) orientation. Vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM) show that the films have magnetic hysteresis at room temperature, with the in-plane saturation magnetization M@sub s@ being larger than the out-of-plane M@sub s@ for Mn@sub 4@N(111)/GaN(0001) thin films. The authors acknowledge support from NSF and ONR. @FootnoteText@ @footnote 1@G. A. Prinz, Science 250,1092(1990).@footnote 2@W. J. Takei, R. R. Heikes and G. Shirane, Phy. Rev. 125, 1893 (1962).