Tuning the magnetic interactions in GaAs:Mn/MnAs hybrid structures by controlling shape and position of MnAs nanoclusters [Elektronische Ressource] / vorgelegt von Matthias Thomas Elm

Elm, Adolf Matthias

Sujets

• Physik

Informations

• Publié par: justus-liebig-universitat_giessen
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 34
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 10 Mo

Extrait

Tuning the magnetic interactions in GaAs:Mn/MnAs
hybrid structures by controlling shape and position of
MnAs nanoclusters
DISSERTATION
zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades
der Naturwissenschaften
(Dr. rer. nat.)
vorgelegt von
Dipl.-Phys. Matthias Thomas Elm
- anno 2010 -
I. Physikalisches Institut
Justus-Liebig-Universit¨at GießenContents
Introduction 7
1 Theoretical background 11
1.1 Magnetism in solids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.1.1 Diamagnetism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.1.2 Paramagnetism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.1.3 Ferromagnetism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.2 Properties of ferromagnets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1.2.1 Magnetic anisotropy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1.2.2 Domain structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
1.3 Magnetoresistance effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
1.3.1 Ordinary magnetoresistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.3.2 Extraordinary magnetoresistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
1.3.3 Large linear magnetoresistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
1.3.4 Anisotropic magnetoresistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
1.3.5 Giant magnetoresistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
1.3.6 Tunnel magnetoresistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2 Self-assembled growth of MnAs clusters on (111)B substrates by
MOVPE 37
2.1 Basic principles of metal-organic vapour phase epitaxy . . . . . . 37
2.2 Self-assembled growth of randomly distributed hexagon-shaped
nanoclusters on (111)B GaInAs/InP surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.3 Selective-area growth of MnAs cluster arrangements on pre-
patterned (111)B GaAs substrates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.3.1 Pre-patterning of the substrate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.3.2 Self-assembled growth of the MnAs clusters by MOVPE . 44
2.3.3 Influence of the orientation of the openings on the cluster
growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
2.3.4 Influence of the fabrication process on the aspect-ratio . . 46
2.3.5 Prepared arrangements of nanoclusters and cluster chains 48
3 Magnetic properties 51
3.1 SQUID measurements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.1.1 Operation mode of a SQUID magnetometer . . . . . . . . 51
3.1.2 Results of the SQUID measurements . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.2 Ferromagnetic resonance measurements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.2.1 Theortical description of electron paramagnetic resonance 55
3.2.2 Principles of ferromagnetic resonance. . . . . . . . . . . . 566 Contents
3.2.3 Experimental setup for the FMR measurements . . . . . . 59
3.2.4 Results for the randomly distributed MnAs nanoclusters . 61
3.2.5 Resultsforregularlyarrangedhexagon-shapednanoclusters 64
3.2.6 Resultsforlyarrangedelongatednanoclustersand
cluster chains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.3 Atomic and magnetic force microscopy investigations . . . . . . . 69
3.3.1 Principle of atomic force and magnetic force microscopy . 69
3.3.2 AFMandMFMmeasurementsofregularlyarrangedelon-
gated nanoclusters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.3.3 AFM and MFM measurements of different arrangements
of coupled nanoclusters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
4 Magnetotransport measurements 75
4.1 Experimental set-up for magnetotransport measurements . . . . 75
4.2 Sample preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.2.1 Hall-bar structuring of the samples with randomly dis-
tributed nanoclusters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.2.2 Preparation of the contact pads for the samples with reg-
ularly arranged nanoclusters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
4.3 Influence of a random cluster distribution on the transport pro-
perties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.3.1 Interaction with an external magnetic field . . . . . . . . 79
4.3.2 Magnetoresistance behaviour of the samples with a ran-
dom cluster distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.3.3 Anisotropy of the magnetoresistance effects . . . . . . . . 88
4.3.4 Comparison with theoretical calculations . . . . . . . . . 91
4.3.5 Theoreticalpredicitionsforregulararrangementsofnano-
clusters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.4 Influence of regularly arranged elongated MnAs clusters and
chains on the transport properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
4.4.1 Magnetotransportmeasurementsofregulararrangements
of elongated nanoclusters and cluster chains . . . . . . . . 94
4.4.2 Magnetoresistance behaviour at temperatures above 30K 97
4.4.3 Transport behaviour at low temperatures . . . . . . . . . 99
4.4.4 Angle-dependent transport measurements . . . . . . . . . 106
Summary 117
Bibliography 119
List of publications 127
Acknowledgments 129Introduction
The realization of magnetoelectronic and spintronic devices is of great interest
in the field of electronic devices, because such devices offer extended function-
alities by not only using the charge of the electron for information transfer
and storage but also the intrinsic angular momentum of the electron, the
spin. As an example for such an extended functionality one may mention the
non-volatility of the stored information in magnetic random access memory
(MRAM). In contrast to the storage media commonly used today like dynamic
random access memory (DRAM) in MRAMs the information is not stored
electronically but via the magnetization orientation of a magnetic device.
The advantage of magnetoelectronic devices is, that the information does not
need to be renewed permanently and even is conserved after the shut-down
of the power supply. Furthermore, MRAM’s consist of metals which makes
them more robust and miniaturizable than doped semiconductors. Therefore,
magnetoelectronics and spintronics will play a key role for future micro- and
nanostructured devices.
The magnetoelectronic devices used today are based in their operation mode
mostly on metals, i.e. ferromagnetic metals are used to introduce spin
orientation, where the relative change in the resistivity depending on the
orientation of the magnetization in the metals is utilized. All the metal-based
devices have in common, that their Curie temperatures are much larger than
room temperature and that quantum effects only occur at size scales much
smaller than the structural size of current devices.
The electron spin is not utilized yet in the semiconductor-based electronic or
optoelectronic devices. Nevertheless in semiconductors a considerable degree of
spin-polarization can be generated in several ways, e.g. by optical excitation,
spin-injection or by spin alignment in a paramagnetic (giant Zeeman splitting
in the present of an external magnetic field) or ferromagnetic semiconductor
(spontaneous magnetization) [1, 2, 3]. But so far, this is generally only possible
for temperatures below room temperatures, which hinders most technological
applications. On the other hand, a transformation of spin information into
polarized photons in the field of spin optoelectronics can easily be realised with
semiconductor devices. The great challenge for the future is the combination
of the advantages of both, metal-based magnetoelectronics and semiconductor-
based electronics which is the mayor aim in the field of spintronics.
In their simplest form all magnetoelectronic devices consist of two magnetic
layers which are separated by a diamagnetic layer beeing either a diamagnetic
metal (giant magneto-resistance or GMR-structure)[4, 5] or an insulator
(tunneling magneto-resistance or TMR-structure) [6]. The operation of these
devices is based on the effect, that the electric resistance of the layered8 Introduction
structure depends on the relative orientation of the magnetization of the
two magnetic layers. The resistance through the layer system is large, if the
magnetizations of the layers are aligned antiparallel. The physical origin of
this effect is strong spin-dependent scattering at the interfaces between the
layers of different magnetic orientation. In the case of a parallel alignment of
the layer’s magnetizations, this spin-dependent scattering is reduced leading
to a decreased resistivity. Today GMR- and TMR- structures are employed in
contact-free sensors, magnetic memory, hard-disk reading-heads etc. However,
the device geometry as a layered structure, where the current is mostly applied
perpendicular to the layers, is not ideally suited for integrating these devices
into larger planar structures and to miniaturize them further.
Interestingalternativematerialsystems fornewmagnetoelectronicdevicesmay
be the so called granular semiconductor-ferromagnet hybrid structures, which
offer the possibility to circumvent the disadvantages mentioned. Granular
hybrid structures consisting of ferromagnetic nanoscale clusters embedded
in a semiconducting matrix material or arranged on the surface combine
ferromagnetic and semiconducting properties in one material system and show
magneto-resistance effects somewhat similar to the GMR- or TMR-effect [7, 8].
In addition, their properties can be tuned in a wide range. This tunability
arises from the