Regensburg 2016 – scientific programme

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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus

MA 44: Spininjection / Spin currents in heterostructures

MA 44.7: Talk

Thursday, March 10, 2016, 16:45–17:00, H31

Switchable spin-current in a non-magnetic-metal/ferroelectric tunnel junction — Andrea Neroni, Daniel Wortmann, Stefan Blügel, and •Marjana Ležaić — Peter Grünberg Institut and Institute for Advanced Simulation, Forschungszentrum Jülich and JARA, 52425 Jülich, Germany

The Rashba effect produces a crystal-momentum dependent spin-splitting of the electronic bands. As a consequence of the inversion symmetry breaking, it is often observed at the surfaces, due to the potential gradient in the direction normal to the surface. In bulk, the splitting is present in some structures with the appropriate symmetry breaking. For example, it was shown [1, 2] that the effect could be observed in ferroelectrics containing heavy elements (such as GeTe).

Using Density Functional Theory calculations, we study a tunnel junction consisting of non-magnetic metallic leads and GeTe as the barrier material. We show that the Rashba-like splitting of the GeTe bands causes a momentum and spin-dependence of the electron-current tunneling probabilities and propose a device which exploits this dependence to obtain a switchable spin-current that can be controlled by the polarization direction of the ferroelectric barrier [3].

We acknowledge the support by Helmholtz Young Investigators Group Programme VH-NG-409.

[1] D. Di Sante et al., Adv. Mater. 25, 509 (2013). [2] M. Liebmann et al., Adv. Mater. DOI: 10.1002/adma.201503459 (2015) [3] A. Neroni, PhD Thesis, RWTH Aachen