Determining Spin Polarization of Ferromagnets Using Superconducting Spectroscopy Jazcek Guy Braden
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Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2006 Determining Spin Polarization of Ferromagnets Using Superconducting Spectroscopy Jazcek Guy Braden Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES DETERMINING SPIN POLARIZATION OF FERROMAGNETS USING SUPERCONDUCTING SPECTROSCOPY By JAZCEK GUY BRADEN A dissertation submitted to the Department of Physics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2006 The members of the Committee approve the dissertation of Jazcek Guy Braden defended on January 27, 2006. Peng Xiong Professor Directing dissertation P. Byrant Chase Outside Committee Member Stephan von Moln´ar Committee Member Pedro Schlottmann Committee Member Ingo Wiedenhover Committee Member The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members. ii To my loving mother without whom none of this would have been possible iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to say first and foremost what an honor it has been to receive the guidance of Prof. Peng Xiong. His extensive knowledge of materials fabrication and experimental results has been an indispensable resource in my studies. I would also like to thank Prof. Stephan von Moln´ar for sharing his experience and resources with me, Prof. Pedro Schlottmann for his countless contributions and for developing the theory involved in this work, and our postdocs Dr. Daniel Read and Dr. Jens Mueller who provided considerable instruction and helping hands in the course of my work, and Dr. Cong Ren for his considerable help in my own research and for the work done on the barrier dependence. I would like to thank Ray Kallaher for his help in photolithography and Jeff Parker for all his assistance, specifically the measurements on (Ga,Mn)As. I would also like to thank Prof. Nitin Samarth and co workers at Penn State who provided the (Ga,Mn)As samples for this work. I offer my gratitude to the entire staff of MARTECH for providing the high level of support that made the lab function at it’s high level of excellence. Ian Winger and the rest of the MARTECH machine shop proved to be remarkably skilled and creative engineers, designing and building many components used in the work here. I would like to thank Jim Valentine for his maintenance, design and support of the electronics for our labs. I would also like to thank Kurt Koetz for maintaining a constant supply of Helium and for his support of our cryogenics. Lastly I would like to thank Eric Lochner for the instruction and maintenance provided with the various MARTECH facilities. All of the research presented here was funded by DARPA through the Office of Naval Research. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables ...................................... vii List of Figures ..................................... viii Abstract ........................................ xiii 1. Introduction .................................... 1 2. Spintronics ..................................... 3 2.1 Spin Polarization ............................... 3 2.2 Spintronic device concepts .......................... 5 2.3 Spintronic Compatible Materials ...................... 10 3. Superconducting Spectroscopy .......................... 13 3.1 Review of Superconductivity ......................... 13 3.2 Zeeman Resolved Tunnel Junctions ..................... 16 3.3 Andreev Reflection Spectroscopy ...................... 20 3.4 Zeeman Resolved Andreev Contacts ..................... 27 4. Spin Polarization of (Ga,Mn)As .......................... 34 4.1 Background .................................. 34 4.2 Sample Fabrication .............................. 35 4.3 Experiment .................................. 36 4.4 Analysis .................................... 38 4.5 Interface Sensitivity ............................. 42 4.6 Conclusions .................................. 42 5. Spin Polarization of EuS .............................. 44 5.1 Introduction .................................. 44 5.2 Sample Fabrication .............................. 46 5.3 Experiment and Analysis ........................... 47 5.4 Conclusions .................................. 52 6. Spin Polarization Dependence on Barrier Thickness ............... 53 6.1 Introduction .................................. 53 6.2 Fabrication .................................. 53 v 6.3 Experiment and Analysis ........................... 54 7. CONCLUSIONS .................................. 59 APPENDICES ..................................... 61 A. Fabrication Techniques ............................... 61 A.1 Growth Techniques .............................. 61 A.2 Patterning ................................... 63 B. Measurement Techniques ............................. 68 C. List of Terminology ................................ 71 REFERENCES ..................................... 72 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ............................. 78 vi LIST OF TABLES 3.1 Normalized spin-orbit scattering rate b from tunneling measurements. .... 15 3.2 Table of P values determined via Zeeman Resolved Tunnel Junctions and ARS 19 3.3 Probabilities for transmission and reflection at the interface of an S/NM for both above and below gap regions from the original BTK model [42] 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 E2−∆2 (γ = [u0 + Z (u0 v0)] and u0 =1 v0 = (1 + 2 )) ......... 21 − − 2 q E vii LIST OF FIGURES 2.1 Schematic diagram of the spin resolved DOS available to electrons in (a) a normal metal, (b) a ferromagnetic metal, and (c) a half metal. ........ 4 2.2 Longitudinal magnetoresistance of three different Fe/Cr superlattices at 4.2K. Taken from Ref [6] ................................ 6 2.3 Schematic representation of spin-polarized transport in GMR structures where for anti-parallel moments certain conduction channels are forbidden, resulting in a increased resistance in a) CPP configuration and b) CIP configuration. c) Diagram of a GMR spin valve based read head in a hard drive. The resistance of the spin valve (shown in green) is measured through iin and iout as it passes over magnetic bits (shown in red) which rotate the soft layer up or down. Figures taken from [8] .............................. 6 2.4 Representation of the MR switching behavior in a MTJ. The arrows indicate the orientations of the magnetic moments. ................... 7 2.5 Schematical outline of MRAM designs taken from [8] (a) GMR spin valve based structure in which the bit and word lines are electrically isolated from the sense line (b) MTJ based structure where they are not electrically isolated, allowing for a four terminal resistance measurement. .............. 9 2.6 Spin FET structure described in Ref [15]. Spin is injected and detected by the FM electrodes and is transported through the 2DEG where it can be made to rotate by an electric field created by the Au electrode. ............ 10 2.7 Parallel resistor model of spin oriented conduction in a spin FET structure in the case of (a) parallel aligned magnitizations and (b) anti-parallel aligned magnetizations taken from Ref [16] ....................... 12 2.8 Injected polarization versus injector polarization for different ratios of semi- conductor (σsc) to ferromagnetic (σfm) conductivities. ............. 12 3.1 (a)Normalized parallel HC versus reduced temperature (t = T/Tc) for various thicknesses of Pt. (b) Spin orbit scattering rate versus Pt thickness. Both taken from [24] .................................. 15 viii 3.2 Theoretical density of states for spin-down (solid lines) and spin-up (dashed lines) electrons in a magnetic field H = 0.2 ∆/µ with b values of (a) 0.02, (b) 0.1, (c) 0.3, and (d) 0.6 .............................. 16 3.3 (a) The band structure depiction of an S/I/N junction with an applied bias voltage. (b) A plot of normalized conductance versus eV/∆ of a S/I/N structure at T = 0, directly reflecting the BCS DOS (Eq. 3.1) of the superconductor. (c) The effects of a finite temperature on the conductance of a tunnel junction, plotted same as previous with T/Tc = 0.25. ........ 19 3.4 (a) The up (down) spin density of states at zero temperature plotted in blue dotted (red dashed) lines Zeeman split by a field H. (b) The conductance spectra for the up (down) spin plotted in red dashed (blue dotted), along with the normalized sum of the components plotted in black. σx corresponds to the G(V) values chosen in the Meservey-Tedrow approximation of P . .. 19 | | 3.5 Dependence of P of LSMO on the chosen V taken from [33], the arrow denotes the value that would have been chosen in the Meservey-Tedrow approximation. 20 3.6 Energy vs momentum diagram taken from Ref [42]. Open circles denote holes, solid circles denote electrons, and the arrows indicate group velocity. Starting with an incident electron with momentum q+ (0), the possible transmitted (2,4) and reflected particles (5,6) are diagrammed. ............... 21 3.7 (a) AR process at a normal metal/superconductor interface where an incident electron with E < ∆ pairs with an electron of opposite spin to form a Cooper pair, reflecting| | a hole and doubling the conductance. (b) AR in a ferromagnet/superconductor (P = 75%) where the same incident electron finds no opposite spin to pair with, is normally reflected and decreases the conductance enhancement. ............................ 23 3.8 Spin-polarized BTK model applied in planar configuration on (a) Al/Al2O3/NiFe and (b) Al/Al2O3/EuS structures with intermediate to high Z values.