Dresden 2006 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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HL: Halbleiterphysik

HL 20: Spin controlled transport II

HL 20.5: Vortrag

Dienstag, 28. März 2006, 16:15–16:30, BEY 118

Current Assisted Magnetization Switching in (Ga,Mn)As Nanodevices — •K. Pappert, C. Gould, C. Rüster, R. Giraud, T. Borzenko, G. M. Schott, K. Brunner, G. Schmidt, and L. W. Molenkamp — Physikalisches Institut (EP3), Universität Würzburg, Am Hubland, D-97074 Würzburg, Germany

Current induced magnetization switching of metallic nanometer-sized magnets has attracted much attention over the past years. It is viewed as an attractive alternative technique for magnetic information storage. However, the current densities presently needed highly exceed the limits tolerated by today’s integrated circuits.

Ferromagnetic semiconductors on the other hand are anticipated to react to much smaller current densities. Yamanouchi et al.[1] observed current assisted magnetization switching in a (Ga,Mn)As Hall bar close to its Curie temperature using the magnetooptical Kerr and Hall effect. Here we present current assisted switching of the island of a (Ga,Mn)As double constriction device at 4.2 K. We adapt a read-out scheme demonstrated by Rüster et al.[2]. They used the resistance of domain walls pinned by nanoconstrictions to determine the magnetic configuration in a similar structure. Combining current assisted switching and the pinned domain wall resistance read-out in a single device constitutes a significant step forward towards a spintronic storage device, which may use domain walls to realize information storage, transport, manipulation and read-out.

[1] M. Yamanouchi et al., Nature 428, 539 (2004).

[2] C. Rüster et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 216602 (2003).