Here we show that ordinary band structure codes can be used to understand the mechanisms of coherent spin-injection at interfaces between ferromagnets and semiconductors. This approach allows the screening of different material combinations for properties useful for obtaining high tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR). We used the Vienna Ab-initio Simulation Code (VASP) to calculate the wave function character of each band in periodic epitaxial Fe(100)|GaAs(100) and Fe(100)|ZnSe(100) structures. It is shown that Fe wave functions of different symmetry near Fermi energy decay differently in the GaAs and ZnSe.
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0509561,
title = {Spin Dependent Tunneling in FM|semiconductor|FM structures},
author = {S. Vutukuri and M. Chshiev and W. H. Butler},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0509561},
year = {2010}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication in MMM'05 Proceedings. 7 pages, 5 figures