HIGH-FIELD MAGNETOTRANSPORT STUDIES OF FERROMAGNETIC GaAs/Mn DIGITAL ALLOYS

Abstract

Magnetotransport properties of ferromagnetic GaAs / Mn digital alloys have been investigated in fields up to 33 T. A series of four GaAs / Mn digital alloys with different Mn coverages (0.15 ML - 0.5 ML) at fixed GaAs spacer thickness (9 ML), with Curie temperatures, TC, between 20 and 40 K shows hopping conduction behavior in the zero-field sheet resistance below TC. Analysis of the high field magnetotransport measurements on these samples reveals hole densities between 0.45×1013 and 1.8×1013 cm -2/ Mn layer at 5 K. In contrast, a GaAs / Mn digital alloy with slightly different parameters (0.5 ML Mn and 14 ML GaAs spacer layers) and growth conditions shows essentially metallic behavior and much higher TC (60 K). The zero-field sheet resistance, although decreasing weakly with T at low temperatures, cannot be fit by a hopping expression. From analysis of Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations observed in this sample, an effective mass of ≈0.31m0 was determined, close to the heavy hole mass of GaAs . The hole density extracted from fits to RHall at high fields is comparable to that of the insulating GaAs / Ma digital alloys at the same Mn coverage. This suggests that the increased metallicity is the most important factor in significantly enhancing TC.