Investigation of Ferromagnetic Semiconductor Devices for Spintronics

摘要

Spintronic devices are being developed as an alternative to conventional semiconductor devices for many applications including information storage, communications and information processing. Hybrid unipolar devices comprising ferromagnetic metals and semiconductors have been employed to demonstrate spin injection and detection in Si. However, for integration and fabrication of all-semiconductor magnetoelectronic devices, dilute magnetic semiconductors (DMS) are the most likely candidates, and many possible unipolar and bipolar devices have been already proposed using these materials. In particular the bipolar magnetic junction transistor (MJT) has been predicted to have unique properties like magneto-amplification (MA), which is the change of amplification upon application of an external magnetic field. Here we report on the room-temperature operation of a InMnAs based bipolar magnetic junction transistor. Magnetoamplification is observed for the first time in a bipolar magnetic junction transistor.