Theory and Simulation of Spin Transport in Antiferromagnetic Semiconductors: Application to MnTe

TL;DR

This paper models spin transport in antiferromagnetic semiconductors, specifically MnTe, using Monte Carlo simulations and Boltzmann's equation, revealing temperature-dependent spin resistivity behavior near the magnetic transition.

Contribution

It introduces a combined theoretical and simulation approach to analyze spin transport in antiferromagnetic semiconductors, focusing on MnTe, with detailed temperature-dependent resistivity predictions.

Findings

Spin resistivity peaks near the transition temperature.

Maximum shape depends on anisotropy and magnetic field.

No sharp peak unlike ferromagnetic materials.

Abstract

We study in this paper the parallel spin current in an antiferromagnetic semiconductor thin film where we take into account the interaction between itinerant spins and lattice spins. The spin model is an anisotropic Heisenberg model. We use here the Boltzmann's equation with numerical data on cluster distribution obtained by Monte Carlo simulations and cluster-construction algorithms. We study the cases of degenerate and non-degenerate semiconductors. The spin resistivity in both cases is shown to depend on the temperature with a broad maximum at the transition temperature of the lattice spin system. The shape of the maximum depends on the spin anisotropy and on the magnetic field. It shows however no sharp peak in contrast to ferromagnetic materials. Our method is applied to MnTe. Comparison to experimental data is given.