Berlin 2008 – scientific programme

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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus

MA 3: Magnetic Semiconductors

MA 3.9: Talk

Monday, February 25, 2008, 12:15–12:30, H 1012

A non-volatile memory device based on locally engineered anisotropies in (Ga,Mn)As — •Kia Tavakoli, Katrin Pappert, Charles Gould, Jan Wenisch, Karl Brunner, Georg Schmidt, and Laurens W. Molenkamp — Physikalisches Institut (EP3), Universität Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074 Würzburg, Germany

Ferromagnetic semiconductors (FS) promise the integration of magnetic memory functionality and semiconductor information processing within the same material system. Recently we have shown that improvements in lithographic patterning enable the fabrication of a novel class of devices in which the anisotropy of many individual elements can be independently engineered [1]. Here, we present a first device application of anisotropy engineering; we consider two (Ga,Mn)As nanobars coupled via a small constriction and contacted with sub-micron sized Ti/Au-contacts [2]. The device behaves as a non-volatile memory element, where information can be written by setting the relative orientation of the magnetization of the nanobars, and read by measuring the constriction resistance.

[1] J. Wenisch et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, (2007) 077201

[2] K. Pappert et al., Nature Physics 3, (2007) 573