AVS 53rd International Symposium
    Magnetic Interfaces and Nanostructures Wednesday Sessions
       Session MI-WeM

Paper MI-WeM4
Measuring Spin Dependant Hot Electron Transport using Spin-Polarized Ballistic Electron Emission Microscopy

Wednesday, November 15, 2006, 9:00 am, Room 2006

Session: Magnetic Imaging
Presenter: A.J. Stollenwerk, University at Albany, SUNY
Authors: A.J. Stollenwerk, University at Albany, SUNY
M.R. Krause, Thompson, Germany
D.H. Idell, University at Albany, SUNY
V.P. LaBella, University at Albany, SUNY
Correspondent: Click to Email
Devices that utilize the spin degree of freedom rely on transport of electron spin through materials and material interfaces. Further knowledge of spin-polarized electron transport can aid in the development of these and other spintronic devices. To this end, we developed spin polarized ballistic electron emission microscopy (SP-BEEM), where a ferromagnetic STM tip is utilized to inject spin-polarized electrons into a ferromagnetic metal semiconductor Schottky diode. This technique allows measurement of spin polarized hot electron transport as a function of angle between the magnetic field of the tip and the magnetic field of the sample. This provides a powerful instrument to study spin dependant transport due to the full 2Ï? rotational capability and the nanoscale positioning of the STM tip. The talk will discuss this technique and how to use it to extract spin dependent attenuation lengths of ferromagnetic metals.