Bias and temperature dependence of hot electron transport in a spin-valve structure

Abstract

We have explored spin-dependent hot electron transport in a magnetic tunneling junction at finite temperatures. The inelastic mean-free path has been extracted from either theoretical calulations or experimental measurements. The temperature dependence of hot electron spin polarization has been modeled according to P0[1−(T/Tc)3/2]. The bias dependence of magnetocurrent agrees in trend with experiments, which indicates that the model adopted here indeed displays the key factors in these phenomena.