Robustness of n-GaAs Carrier Spin Properties to 5 MeV Proton Irradiation

TL;DR

This study investigates the impact of 5 MeV proton irradiation on n-GaAs spin properties, revealing their robustness up to high radiation doses, which supports the potential of spin-based electronics in radiation-prone environments.

Contribution

It provides the first systematic analysis of n-GaAs spin properties under proton irradiation, demonstrating their resilience and advancing spintronics for radiation-resistant applications.

Findings

Spin properties remain stable up to 1x10^{14} protons/cm^2

Luminescence decreases significantly with irradiation

Electron spin coherence shows negligible change

Abstract

Modern electronic devices utilize charge to transmit and store information. This leaves the information susceptible to external influences, such as radiation, that can introduce short timescale charge fluctuations and, long term, degrade electronic properties. Encoding information as spin polarizations offers an attractive alternative to electronic logic that should be robust to randomly polarized transient radiation effects. As a preliminary step towards radiation-resistant spintronic devices, we measure the spin properties of n-GaAs as a function of radiation fluence using time-resolved Kerr rotation and photoluminescence spectroscopy. Our results show a modest to negligible change in the long-term electron spin properties up to a fluence of 1x10$^{14}$ (5 MeV protons)/cm$^2$, even as the luminescence decreases by two orders of magnitude.