Ballistic Spin Injection and Detection in Fe/Semiconductor/Fe Junctions

TL;DR

This paper uses ab initio calculations to analyze spin-dependent electronic transport in Fe/semiconductor/Fe junctions, demonstrating near-ideal spin polarization and magnetoresistance in ballistic conditions.

Contribution

It provides a detailed ab initio analysis of spin injection and detection in Fe/semiconductor/Fe junctions, highlighting the role of interface structure and transmission resonances.

Findings

Current polarization and magnetoresistance ratio approach 100% in ballistic transport.

Interface electronic structure critically influences spin transport.

Transmission resonances significantly affect conductance properties.

Abstract

We present {\it ab initio} calculations of the spin-dependent electronic transport in Fe/GaAs/Fe and Fe/ZnSe/Fe (001) junctions simulating the situation of a spin-injection experiment. We follow a ballistic Landauer-B\"uttiker approach for the calculation of the spin-dependent dc conductance in the linear-responce regime, in the limit of zero temperature. We show that the bulk band structure of the leads and of the semiconductor, and even more the electronic structure of a clean and abrupt interface, are responsible for a current polarisation and a magnetoresistance ratio of almost the ideal 100%, if the transport is ballistic. In particular we study the significance of the transmission resonances caused by the presence of two interfaces.