Modeling of Spin-Polarized Currents in Zinc Blende-based Magnetic Tunnel Junctions Featuring the Dresselhaus Effect

Abstract

In this study, the spin-polarized currents in a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) with a Fe/GaAs/Fe structure were calculated by considering the Dresselhaus effect. The spin-polarized current was calculated using the Airy wavefunction approach and then compared to the transfer matrix method (TMM) to check the accuracy. It was shown that the total spin-polarized current density evaluated via the Airy-wavefunction approach matches that obtained with the TMM. It was also shown that the current density increases as the barrier width decreases. In addition, the temperature and the incident angle of the electrons affect the current density, where the maximum current density is obtained when the electrons come in a direction perpendicular to the barrier. We herein determined analytically that a high device performance of the MTJ could be achieved by simply controlling the device parameters of barrier width, temperature and incident angle of the electron.