Physics and materials of spintronics in semiconductors

Abstract

Ferromagnetic III-V semiconductors allow us to observe a wide variety of phenomena that either cannot be realized or are very difficult to observe in metal ferromagnets; ranging from reversible electric-field control of ferromagnetic phase transition to obtaining current-induced domain wall velocity as a function of current-density in a wide range of velocity. Here, I present a few recent developments in these fronts focusing on (Ga,Mn)As. A brief discussion on the material front is also given.

Modification of the local atomic structure around Mn atoms in (Ga, Mn)As layers by high temperature annealing

“…In summary, the EXAFS investigation proved that after thermal treatment, the local structure transition around Mn atoms takes place from the chemically homogeneous 'as-grown' layer to the chemically inhomogeneous layer (with cubic Ga(Mn)As clusters, sample 'a'), and further to the material (sample 'c') with well-developed MnAs hexagonal clusters. This points out that the investigated structure is unambiguously placed in the groups described in [45]. It is worth emphasizing that high temperature annealing (600…”