Co-planar spin-polarized light emitting diode

TL;DR

This paper introduces a co-planar spin-polarized light emitting diode that enables highly sensitive electrical detection of spin polarization in semiconductor heterostructures, overcoming limitations of vertical device configurations.

Contribution

The study demonstrates a novel co-planar diode design for efficient spin detection, utilizing lateral arrangement of spin-polarized and optically active regions, and shows its effectiveness in detecting spin generation and magnetized particles.

Findings

Successful detection of electrical field induced spin generation.

Effective detection of magnetized Co particles.

Enhanced sensitivity compared to vertical device configurations.

Abstract

Studies of spin manipulation in semiconductors has benefited from the possibility to grow these materials in high quality on top of optically active III-V systems. The induced electroluminescence in these layered semiconductor heterostructures has been used for a reliable spin detection. In semiconductors with strong spin-orbit interaction, the sensitivity of vertical devices may be insufficient, however, because of the sepration of the spin aligner part and the spin detection region by one or more heterointerfaces and becuse of the short spin coherence length. Here we demostrate that higly sensitive spin detection can be achieved using a lateral arrangement of the spin polarized and optically active regions. Using our co-planar spin-polarized light emitting diodes we detect electrical field induced spin generation in a semiconductor heterojunction two-dimensional hole gas. The polarization results from spin asymmetric recombination of injected electrons with strongly SO coupled two-dimensional holes. The possibility to detect magnetized Co particles deposited on the co-planar diode structure is also demonstrated.