V. Kolkovsky

Spin-Transistor Action via Tunable Landau-Zener Transitions

A Different Spin Transistor A typical transistor consists of a source and a drain; the current that makes it to the drain is controlled by applying voltage to the third terminal, called the gate. In spin-based electronics, where spin current is used instead of charge, the source and the drain are ferromagnetic materials connected by a narrow semiconducting channel. This design, however, suffers from low efficiency. Betthausen et al. (p. 324; see the Perspective by Žutić and Lee) combined homogeneous and helical magnetic fields to change the orientation of the spin on its way to the drain, preserving spin information over distances many times the spin mean free path. The transistor is “on” when the transport is adiabatic—i.e., slow enough for the spin to be able to adapt to the local magnetic field—and “off” otherwise. An alternative design for a spin-based transistor proves tolerant to disorder. Spin-transistor designs relying on spin-orbit interaction suffer from low signal levels resulting from low spin-injection efficiency and fast spin decay. Here, we present an alternative approach in which spin information is protected by propagating this information adiabatically. We demonstrate the validity of our approach in a cadmium manganese telluride diluted magnetic semiconductor quantum well structure in which efficient spin transport is observed over device distances of 50 micrometers. The device is turned “off” by introducing diabatic Landau-Zener transitions that lead to a backscattering of spins, which are controlled by a combination of a helical and a homogeneous magnetic field. In contrast to other spin-transistor designs, we find that our concept is tolerant against disorder.

Spin currents in diluted magnetic semiconductors.

We study zero-bias spin separation in (Cd,Mn)Te/(Cd,Mg)Te diluted magnetic semiconductor structures. The spin current generated by electron gas heating under terahertz radiation is converted into a net electric current by applying an external magnetic field. The experiments show that the spin polarization of the magnetic ion system enhances drastically the conversion process due to giant Zeeman splitting of the conduction band and spin-dependent electron scattering on localized Mn(2+) ions.

Midinfrared electroluminescence from PbTe/CdTe quantum dot light-emitting diodes

Midinfrared electroluminescence of epitaxial PbTe quantum dots in CdTe with emission in the 2–3 μm wavelength range is demonstrated up to room temperature. The light-emitting diode structures were grown by molecular beam epitaxy with the active PbTe quantum dots embedded in the intrinsic zone of a CdTe/CdZnTe p-i-n junction on GaAs (100) substrates. The current and temperature dependences of the electroluminescence emission are presented. The comparison with photoluminescence measurements shows that midinfrared light-emission from the diodes originates from the quantum dots.

Evidence for charging effects in CdTe/CdMgTe quantum point contacts

Here we report on fabrication and low temperature magnetotransport measurements of quantum point contacts patterned from a novel two-dimensional electron system - CdTe/CdMgTe modulation doped heterostructure. From the temperature and bias dependence we ascribe the reported data to evidence for a weakly bound state which is naturally formed inside a CdTe quantum constrictions due to charging effects. We argue that the spontaneous introduction of an open dot is responsible for the replacement of flat conductance plateaus by quasi-periodic resonances with amplitude less than 2e^{2}/h, as found in our system. Additionally, below 1 K a pattern of weaker conductance peaks, superimposed upon wider resonances, is also observed.

Capture kinetics at deep-level defects in MBE-grown CdTe layers

The results of deep-level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) investigations in n-type CdTe layers grown by the molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) technique on lattice-mismatched GaAs substrates are described. Three electron traps and one hole trap, at rather low concentrations of the order of 1013 cm−3, have been revealed in the DLTS spectra measured under various bias conditions of Schottky diodes prepared on the as-grown CdTe layers. One of the electron traps has been attributed to electron states of dislocations on the ground of the logarithmic capture kinetics for capture of electrons into the trap states. The other three traps, displaying exponential capture kinetics, have been attributed to native point defects produced during the epitaxial growth of CdTe. The microscopic nature of the defects responsible for the traps is discussed taking into account recent results of first-principles calculations of the properties of dominant native defects in CdTe.

Electrostatic control of quantum Hall ferromagnetic transition: A step toward reconfigurable network of helical channels

Ferromagnetic transitions between quantum Hall states with different polarization at a fixed filling factor can be studied by varying the ratio of cyclotron and Zeeman energies in tilted magnetic field experiments. However, an ability to locally control such transitions at a fixed magnetic field would open a range of attractive applications, e.g. formation of a reconfigurable network of one-dimensional helical domain walls in a two-dimensional plane. Coupled to a superconductor, such domain walls can support non-Abelian excitation. In this article we report development of heterostructures where quantum Hall ferromagnetic (QHFm) transition can be controlled locally by electrostatic gating. A high mobility two-dimensional electron gas is formed in CdTe quantum wells with engineered placement of paramagnetic Mn impurities. Gate-induced electrostatic field shifts electron wavefunction in the growth direction and changes overlap between electrons in the quantum well and d-shell electrons on Mn, thus controlling the s-d exchange interaction and the field of the QHFm transition. The demonstrated shift of the QHFm transition at a filling factor

Magnetoresistance quantum oscillations in a magnetic two-dimensional electron gas

\nu=2

Fractional quantum Hall effect in a dilute magnetic semiconductor

is large enough to allow full control of spin polarization at a fixed magnetic field.

Mesoscopic Transport in Electrostatically Defined Spin-Full Channels in Quantum Hall Ferromagnets

Magnetotransport measurements of Shubnikov–de Haas (SdH) oscillations have been performed on twodimensional electron gases (2DEGs) confined in CdTe and CdMnTe quantum wells. The quantum oscillations in CdMnTe, where the 2DEG interacts with magnetic Mn ions, can be described by incorporating the electron-Mn exchange interaction into the traditional Lifshitz-Kosevich formalism. The modified spin splitting leads to characteristic beating pattern in the SdH oscillations, the study of which indicates the formation of Mn clusters resulting in direct anti-ferromagnetic Mn-Mn interaction. The Landau-level broadening in this system shows a peculiar decrease with increasing temperature, which could be related to statistical fluctuations of the Mn concentration.

Enhancement of the spin gap in fully occupied two-dimensional Landau levels

We report the observation of the fractional quantum Hall effect in the lowest Landau level of a two-dimensional electron system (2DES), residing in the diluted magnetic semiconductor Cd1−xMnxTe. The presence of magnetic impurities results in a giant Zeeman splitting leading to an unusual ordering of composite fermion Landau levels. In experiment, this results in an unconventional opening and closing of fractional gaps around the filling factor ν=3/2 as a function of an in-plane magnetic field, i.e., of the Zeeman energy. By including the s-d exchange energy into the composite Landau level spectrum the opening and closing of the gap at filling factor 5/3 can be modeled quantitatively. The widely tunable spin-splitting in a diluted magnetic 2DES provides a means to manipulate fractional states.