Spin Polarization Measurements of Rare Earth Thin Films: A Study of Materials for Spintronic and Magnetoelectronic devices
12/02/2008
Spin polarization, the difference in the number of spin-up and
spin-down electrons, is an intrinsic property of ferromagnetic
materials. Materials with high spin polarization have important
technological implications for magnetoelectronic devices, e.g.
devices that use magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJ), giant
magnetoresistance (GMR) and/or magnetic random access memory, (MRAM).
The fundamental physics of high spin polarization materials forms the
basis for future technological applications.In this work, measurements
of spin polarization have been performed on caxis gadolinium and
dysprosium thin films, epitaxially grown on (11-20) sapphire substrates
with a tungsten (110) seed layer. The values of spin polarization of
caxis epitaxial gadolinium and dysprosium films were obtained using
the point contact Andreev reflection (PCAR) technique with quantitative
analyses.
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