Abstract

The spin-valve phototransistor is a semiconductor-ferromagnetic metal multilayer-semiconductor transistor operated by photoexciting hot electrons in the emitter semiconductor into a Schottky collector. This device uses an ultra-high vacuum-bonded float zone Si/multilayer/n-InP structure. To distinguish the emitter interband-excited component of collector current from base/collector internal photoemission, a lock-in spectroscopy sensitive only to the magnetocurrent is used. The experimental results indicate a pathway to improve the magnetocurrent of a related device, the spin-valve photodiode, by increasing the fraction of hot electron current that travels through both layers of the ferromagnetic spin valve and demonstrate that hot electrons photogenerated in one semiconductor can be collected by another through a thin ferromagnetic multilayer.

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