Chapter 9
Semiconductor Spintronics
9.1 Introduction
Faster, better, cheaper, anywhere and everywhere are the needs of today’s devicehappy and data-centric world. To meet these demands, we need novel technologies
towards storing and processing of information. Spin-based electronics (spintronics)
has come out with interesting solution for information storing device. In the present
scenario, though the storage devices are based on magnetic metals and insulators, yet
information-processing and communication devices rely on semiconductor devices.
Since the discovery of the giant magnetoresistance (GMR) effect, the spin transport
has been studied in several metals and semiconductors including copper, aluminium,
silicon, germanium, gallium-arsenide and grapheme. Conventionally, motions of
charges are controlled in information-processing devices to achieve switching mechanism, while magnetic domains are reoriented in the magnetic storage devices for
information storage and retrieval. Semiconductor and ferromagnetic materials are
essential for the present-day electronics industries. Semiconductor spintronics may
offer a promising path for the development of new devices where all three operations
like logic, communications and storage can be combined together on a single chip
to produce a multifunctional device that could replace several components. It has
already been observed that the magnetic random access memory (MRAM) based
on the tunnelling magneto-resistance effect has taken a major role in information
storage industry. In MRAM device, the resistance depends on the spin orientations
between two ferromagnetic electrodes. But, it is not too easy to fabricate an active
device, such as a logic circuit from only ferromagnetic metals. However, it can be
easily made with semiconductor materials since channel properties are controllable
with electric field. This chapter discusses the different types of promising materials
that can be explored to design semiconductor spintronics devices. Spin-based semiconductor devices like spin LED, spin transistor, spin laser and spin FET have also
been discussed.
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
P. Dey and J. N. Roy, Spintronics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0069-2_9
201
Semiconductor Spintronics
9.1 Introduction
Faster, better, cheaper, anywhere and everywhere are the needs of today’s devicehappy and data-centric world. To meet these demands, we need novel technologies
towards storing and processing of information. Spin-based electronics (spintronics)
has come out with interesting solution for information storing device. In the present
scenario, though the storage devices are based on magnetic metals and insulators, yet
information-processing and communication devices rely on semiconductor devices.
Since the discovery of the giant magnetoresistance (GMR) effect, the spin transport
has been studied in several metals and semiconductors including copper, aluminium,
silicon, germanium, gallium-arsenide and grapheme. Conventionally, motions of
charges are controlled in information-processing devices to achieve switching mechanism, while magnetic domains are reoriented in the magnetic storage devices for
information storage and retrieval. Semiconductor and ferromagnetic materials are
essential for the present-day electronics industries. Semiconductor spintronics may
offer a promising path for the development of new devices where all three operations
like logic, communications and storage can be combined together on a single chip
to produce a multifunctional device that could replace several components. It has
already been observed that the magnetic random access memory (MRAM) based
on the tunnelling magneto-resistance effect has taken a major role in information
storage industry. In MRAM device, the resistance depends on the spin orientations
between two ferromagnetic electrodes. But, it is not too easy to fabricate an active
device, such as a logic circuit from only ferromagnetic metals. However, it can be
easily made with semiconductor materials since channel properties are controllable
with electric field. This chapter discusses the different types of promising materials
that can be explored to design semiconductor spintronics devices. Spin-based semiconductor devices like spin LED, spin transistor, spin laser and spin FET have also
been discussed.
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
P. Dey and J. N. Roy, Spintronics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0069-2_9
201