Zero-field detection of spin dependent recombination with direct observation of electron nuclear hyperfine interactions in the absence of an oscillating electromagnetic field

Abstract

Electrically detected magnetic resonance (EDMR) involves the electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) study of spin dependent transport mechanisms such as spin dependent tunneling and spin dependent recombination (SDR) in solid state electronics. Conventional EPR measurements generally require strong static magnetic fields, typically 3 kG or greater, and high frequency oscillating electromagnetic fields, typically 9 GHz or higher. In this study, we directly demonstrate that, in the absence of the oscillating electromagnetic field, a very large SDR response (≈1%) can be detected at zero magnetic field with associated hyperfine interactions at extremely low magnetic fields in a silicon carbide (SiC) diode at room temperature. The zero-field SDR (ZFSDR) response that we detect is unexpected in the conventional detection scheme of SDR via EDMR. We believe that our observations provide fundamental physical understanding of other recently reported zero-field phenomena such as singlet triplet mixing in double quantum dots and low-field giant magnetoresistance in organic semiconductors. Our work provides an unambiguous demonstration that the zero-field phenomenon we observe involves SDR. Measurements reported herein indicate that extremely useful low-field SDR and ZFSDR results can be acquired simply and inexpensively in systems of technological importance. This work also suggests the potential use of this new physics in applications including absolute magnetometry with self-calibration, spin based memories, quantum computation, and inexpensive low-field EDMR spectrometers for wafer/probing stations.