Dilute ferromagnetic semiconductors: Physics and spintronic structures

TL;DR

This review summarizes experimental and theoretical advances in dilute ferromagnetic semiconductors, focusing on their magnetic, electronic, and spintronic properties, and explores their potential for spintronic applications and the underlying physics.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the physics, material properties, and spintronic functionalities of various dilute magnetic semiconductors, highlighting recent experimental and theoretical insights.

Findings

(Ga,Mn)As supports hole-mediated ferromagnetism up to 190 K.

Multilayer structures enable efficient spin injection and manipulation.

Magnetic and electronic properties are influenced by disorder and correlation effects.

Abstract

This review compiles results of experimental and theoretical studies on thin films and quantum structures of semiconductors with randomly distributed Mn ions, which exhibit spintronic functionalities associated with collective ferromagnetic spin ordering. Properties of p-type Mn-containing III-V as well as II-VI, V_2-VI_3, IV-VI, I-II-V, and elemental group IV semiconductors are described paying particular attention to the most thoroughly investigated system (Ga,Mn)As that supports the hole-mediated ferromagnetic order up to 190 K for the net concentration of Mn spins below 10%. Multilayer structures showing efficient spin injection and spin-related magnetotransport properties as well as enabling magnetization manipulation by strain, light, electric fields, and spin currents are presented together with their impact on metal spintronics. The challenging interplay between magnetic and electronic properties in topologically trivial and non-trivial systems is described, emphasizing the entangled roles of disorder and correlation at the carrier localization boundary. Finally, the case of dilute magnetic insulators is considered, such as (Ga,Mn)N, where low temperature spin ordering is driven by short-ranged superexchange that is ferromagnetic for certain charge states of magnetic impurities.