Coherent spin transport in magnetization modulated semiconductor heterostructures

Abstract

The Landauer -Büttiker formalism combined with the tight-binding transfer matrix method is employed to model vertical coherent spin transport within magnetization modulated semiconductor heterostructures based on GaAs. This formalism provides excellent physical description of recent experiments concerning the high tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) in (Ga,Mn)As-based trilayers and highly polarized spin injection in p-(Ga,Mn)As/n-GaAs Zener diode. In particular the formalism reproduces strong decrease of the observed effects with external bias. We ascribe this decrease to the band structure effects. In the framework of the developed model, the intrinsic domain-wall resistance (DWR) in (Ga,Mn)As is also studied and compared to experimental results.