Epitaxial Mn5Ge3 (100) layer on Ge(100) substrates obtained by flash lamp annealing

TL;DR

This paper reports the successful epitaxial growth of ferromagnetic Mn5Ge3 films on Ge (100) substrates using flash lamp annealing, enabling CMOS-compatible spin-injectors for germanium-based spintronics.

Contribution

It demonstrates a novel method for epitaxial Mn5Ge3 growth on Ge (100) via flash lamp annealing, expanding substrate compatibility beyond Ge (111).

Findings

Epitaxial Mn5Ge3 films on Ge (100) achieved.

Films are ferromagnetic with a Curie temperature of 283 K.

Flash lamp annealing enables rapid, CMOS-compatible fabrication.

Abstract

Mn5Ge3 thin films have been demonstrated as a promising spin-injector material for germanium-based spintronic devices. So far, Mn5Ge3 has been grown epitaxially only on Ge (111) substrates. In this letter we present the growth of epitaxial Mn5Ge3 films on Ge (100) substrates. The Mn5Ge3 film is synthetized via sub-second solid-state reaction between Mn and Ge upon flash lamp annealing for 20 ms at the ambient pressure. The single crystalline Mn5Ge3 is ferromagnetic with a Curie temperature of 283 K. Both the c-axis of hexagonal Mn5Ge3 and the magnetic easy axis are parallel to the Ge (100) surface. The millisecond-range flash epitaxy provides a new avenue for the fabrication of Ge-based spin-injectors fully compatible with CMOS technology.