Document Type
Article
Original Publication Date
2004
Journal/Book/Conference Title
Applied Physics Letters
Volume
84
Issue
2
DOI of Original Publication
10.1063/1.1639127
Date of Submission
April 2015
Abstract
We study the spatial decay of spin-polarized hot carriercurrent in a spin-valve structure consisting of a semiconductorquantum wire flanked by half-metallic ferromagnetic contacts. The current decays because of D’yakonov-Perel’ spin relaxation in the semiconductor caused by Rashba and Dresselhaus spin–orbit interactions in multi-channeled transport. The associated relaxation length is found to decrease with increasing lattice temperature (in the range from 30 to 77 K) and exhibit a nonmonotonic dependence on the electric field driving the current. The relaxation lengths are several tens of microns which are at least an order of magnitude larger than what has been theoretically calculated for two-dimensional structures at comparable temperatures, spin-orbit interaction strengths, and electric fields. This improvement is a consequence of one-dimensional carrier confinement that does not necessarily suppress carrier scattering, but nevertheless suppresses D’yakonov-Perel’ spin relaxation.
Rights
Pramanik, S., Bandyopadhyay, S. and Cahay, M. Decay of spin-polarized hot carrier current in a quasi-one-dimensional spin-valve structure. Applied Physics Letters, 84, 266 (2004). Copyright © 2004 AIP Publishing LLC.
Is Part Of
VCU Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications
Comments
Originally published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.1639127