Electrical spin injection from an organic-based ferrimagnet in a hybrid organic/inorganic heterostructure

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the successful injection of spin-polarized current from an organic ferrimagnetic semiconductor into a GaAs-based LED at room temperature, highlighting potential for organic spintronics and hybrid device applications.

Contribution

It reports the first successful spin injection from an organic ferrimagnetic semiconductor into an inorganic device at room temperature, advancing hybrid organic/inorganic spintronics.

Findings

Spin current follows the magnetization of V[TCNE]x~2

Spin injection is weakly temperature dependent

Heavy hole / light hole asymmetry observed in spin transport

Abstract

We report the successful extraction of spin polarized current from the organic-based room temperature ferrimagnetic semiconductor V[TCNE]x (x~2, TCNE: tetracyanoethylene; TC ~ 400 K, EG ~ 0.5 eV, s ~ 10-2 S/cm) and its subsequent injection into a GaAs/AlGaAs light-emitting diode (LED). The spin current tracks the magnetization of V[TCNE]x~2, is weakly temperature dependent, and exhibits heavy hole / light hole asymmetry. This result has implications for room temperature spintronics and the use of inorganic materials to probe spin physics in organic and molecular systems.