2004/01/12 by J. Stephens, J. W. W. Stephens, Jesse Berezovsky +6 · 4 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Magnetic properties of thin films #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Semiconductor materials and devices #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.93.097602
13 pages, 4 figures, submitted for publication
arxiv created 2004/01/12 · openalex publication_date 2004/08/27 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We describe a new means for all-electrical generation of spin polarization in semiconductors. In contrast with spin injection of electrons by tunneling through a reverse-biased Schottky barrier, we observe accumulation at the metal-semiconductor interface of forward-biased ferromagnetic Schottky diodes, which is consistent with a theory of spin-dependent reflection off the interface. Spatiotemporal Kerr microscopy is used to image the electron spin and the resulting dynamic nuclear polarization that arises from the nonequilibrium carrier polarization.