Ferromagnetism of Mn/Ge Multilayers Grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy

Abstract

We report on novel ferromagnetic Mn/Ge multilayers for spintronics applications investigated both experimentally and theoretically. Two Mn/Ge multilayers are grown on GaAs (001) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. The period of each multilayer consists of an Mn layer of varying thickness (0.6 and 5 Å) and a 10 Å thick Ge spacer layer. From temperature-dependent magnetization and hysteresis loop measurements, the Mn (0.6 Å)/Ge (10 Å) multilayer showed very weak ferromagnetic ordering, which is persistent up to 260 K, whereas the Mn (5 Å)/Ge (10 Å) multilayer exhibited strong ferromagnetism up to 305 K. The coercive field of the Mn (5 Å)/Ge (10 Å) multilayer was 277 Oe at 200 K. Density functional electronic band structure calculations on a number of Mn/Ge (001) multilayers determined them to be ferromagnetic, and estimates of their critical temperatures are reported.

Department(s)

Physics

Sponsor(s)

United States. Air Force. Office of Scientific Research
United States. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
National Science Foundation (U.S.)

Keywords and Phrases

MBE; Mn/Ge Multilayers; Ferromagnetism

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

1557-1939

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2005 Springer Verlag, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jan 2005

Link to Full Text

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