Spin-polarized transport in pulsed-laser annealed Ge:Mn


Spin-polarized transport in pulsed-laser annealed Ge:Mn

Bürger, D.; Zhou, S.; Kovacs, G. J.; Helm, M.; Schmidt, H.

The incorporation of transition metal dopants in semiconductors above their solubility limit is the main challenge for the fabrication of diluted ferromagnetic semiconductors. Low temperature molecular beam epitaxy (LT-MBE) is the standard technique for the fabrication of GaAs:Mn. For Ge:Mn the LT-MBE approach seems to be successful to grow Mn rich clusters or nanowires [1]. Nevertheless, hysteretic magnetotransport properties were not observed in such Ge:Mn nanostructures. On the other hand, pulsed laser annealing is a successful annealing method far from thermodynamic equilibrium and a promising technique for the fabrication of ferromagnetic Ge:Mn [2] and for III-V semiconductors [3]. In this work, Mn has been implanted into nearly intrinsic n-Ge substrates up to a depth of around 100 nm at low temperatures and annealed by pulsed laser annealing. We observed the same hysteretic properties up to 30 K via SQUID magnetization as well as via magnetotransport measurements. Furthermore, Ge:Mn films show a spontaneous magnetization in field-cooled SQUID measurements below 250 K. Segregated secondary phases with a regular distance slightly above 50 nm have been detected by HRTEM measurements near the sample surface. At elevated temperatures the confirmation of similar magnetization and magnetotransport properties of the p-Ge:Mn surface layer is hampered by the significant contribution of the underlying n-Ge substrate to the conductivity. Further experiments with insulating substrates and proper etching methods are necessary to clarify the ferromagnetic contribution of each individual layer.

[1] M. Jamet et al., Nature. Mat. 5, 653 (2006)
[2] Shengqiang Zhou et al., Phys. Rev. B 81, 165204 (2010)
[3] M. A. Scarpulla et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 82, 1251 (2003)

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