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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 1,081 records · Page 60
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2014

Electric-field induced strain modulation of magnetization in Fe-Ga/Pb(Mg{sub 1/3}Nb{sub 2/3})-PbTiO{sub 3} magnetoelectric heterostructures

Magnetostrictive Fe-Ga thin layers were deposited on 〈110〉-oriented Pb(Mg{sub 1/3}Nb{sub 2/3})-30%PbTiO{sub 3} (PMN-30%PT) substrates by pulsed laser deposition. The as-prepared heterostructures showed columnar arrays aligned in the out-of-plane direction. Transmission electron microscopy revealed nanocrystalline regions within the columnar arrays of the Fe-Ga film. The heterostructure exhibited a strong converse magnetoelectric coupling effect of up to 4.55 × 10{sup −7} s m{sup −1}, as well as an electric field tunability of the in-plane magnetic anisotropy. Furthermore, the remanent magnetization states of the Fe-Ga films can be reversibly and irreversibly changed by external electric fields, suggesting a promising and robust application in magnetic random access memories and spintronics.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Superparamagnetic behavior of Fe-doped SnO{sub 2} nanoparticles

SnO{sub 2} is an n-type semiconductor with a wide band gap of 3.62 eV, and SnO{sub 2} nanoparticles doped with magnetic ions are expected to realized new diluted magnetic semiconductors (DMSs). Realizing ferromagnetism at room temperature is important for spintronics device applications, and it is interesting that the magnetic properties of these DMS systems can be varied significantly by modifying the preparation methods or conditions. In this study, the magnetic properties of Fe-doped (3% and 5%) SnO{sub 2} nanoparticles, prepared using our novel chemical preparation method and encapsulated in amorphous SiO{sub 2}, were investigated. The particle size (1.8–16.9 nm) and crystal phase were controlled by the annealing temperature. X-ray diffraction confirmed a rutile SnO{sub 2} single-phase structure for samples annealed at 1073–1373 K, and the composition was confirmed using X-ray fluorescence analysis. SQUID magnetometer measurements revealed superparamagnetic behavior of the 5%-Fe-doped sample at room temperature, although SnO{sub 2} is known to be diamagnetic. Magnetization curves at 5 K indicated that the 3%-Fe-doped has a larger magnetization than that of the 5%-Fe-doped sample. We conclude that the magnetization of the 5%-Fe-doped sample decreased at 5 K due to the superexchange interaction between the antiferromagnetic coupling in the nanoparticle system.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Electronic structures of reconstructed zigzag silicene nanoribbons

Edge states and magnetism are crucial for spintronic applications of nanoribbons. Here, using first-principles calculations, we explore structural stabilities and electronic properties of zigzag silicene nanoribbons (ZSiNRs) with Klein and pentagon-heptagon reconstructions. Comparing to unreconstructed zigzag edges, deformed bare pentagon-heptagon ones are favored under H-poor conditions, while H-rich surroundings stabilize di-hydrogenated Klein edges. These Klein edges have analogous magnetism to zigzag ones, which also possess the electric-field-induced half-metallicity of nanoribbons. Moreover, diverse magnetic states can be achieved by asymmetric Klein and zigzag edges into ZSiNRs, which could be transformed from antiferromagnetic-semiconductors to bipolar spin-gapless-semiconductors and ferromagnetic-metals depending on edge hydrogenations.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Hetero-epitaxial EuO interfaces studied by analytic electron microscopy

With nearly complete spin polarization, the ferromagnetic semiconductor europium monoxide could enable next-generation spintronic devices by providing efficient ohmic spin injection into silicon. Spin injection is greatly affected by the quality of the interface between the injector and silicon. Here, we use atomic-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy in conjunction with electron energy loss spectroscopy to directly image and chemically characterize a series of EuO|Si and EuO|YAlO{sub 3} interfaces fabricated using different growth conditions. We identify the presence of europium silicides and regions of disorder at the EuO|Si interfaces, imperfections that could significantly reduce spin injection efficiencies via spin-flip scattering.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Enhanced exchange bias effect in size modulated Sm{sub 0.5}Ca{sub 0.5}MnO{sub 3} phase separated manganite

The effect of grain size modulation on exchange bias effect in CE-type antiferromagnetic Sm{sub 0.5}Ca{sub 0.5}MnO{sub 3} phase separated manganite is reported here. With the reduction of particle size, ferromagnetic clusters are found to form in the charge ordered antiferromagnetic matrix and gradually become larger. The horizontal and vertical shifts of the magnetic hysteresis loops in the field cooled magnetization process clearly indicate the size dependent exchange bias effect and it can be tuned with the reduction of particle sizes. The values of exchange bias parameter, i.e., exchange bias field (H{sub E}), coercivity (H{sub C}), remanence asymmetry (M{sub E}), and magnetic coercivity (M{sub C}) are found to depend strongly on the particle size. The variations of H{sub E} follow non-monotonic dependencies with reduction in particle size and show maximum (1205 Oe) at particle size of 150 nm at T = 5 K, which can be ascribed due to the changes in uncompensated surface spins. The values of H{sub E} and M{sub E} are found to decrease exponentially with increasing temperature below the spin- or cluster-glass like freezing temperature. The spin relaxation model has been employed for analysis of large magnetic training effect. The linear relationship between H{sub E} and M{sub E} further confirms the role of uncompensated surface spins. In view of spintronics application of manganites, the present observation of large exchange bias shift in this half-doped manganite may have great technological importance.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Micromagnetic analysis of dynamical bubble-like solitons based on the time domain evolution of the topological density

Dynamical bubble-like solitons have been recently investigated in nanocontact-based spin-torque oscillators with a perpendicular free layer. Those magnetic configurations can be excited also in different geometries as long as they consist of perpendicular materials. Thus, in this paper, a systematic study of the influence of both external field and high current on that kind of dynamics is performed for a spin-valve point-contact geometry where both free and fixed layers present strong perpendicular anisotropy. The usage of the topological density tool highlights the excitation of complex bubble/antibubble configurations. In particular, at high currents, a deformation of the soliton and its simultaneous shift from the contact area are observed and can be ascribable to the Oersted field. Results provide further detailed information on the excitation of solitons in perpendicular materials for application in spintronics, magnonics, and domain wall logic.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Tuning electronic and magnetic properties of armchair|zigzag hybrid graphene nanoribbons by the choice of supercell model of grain boundaries

Grain boundaries (GBs) attract much interest for its ability to tune the property of hybrid materials. Theoretically predicting the properties of hybrid graphene with GBs, even a linear GB remains challenging due to its inhomogeneous structure, which makes supercell model tough to choose in theoretic studies. For the first time, the applicability of supercells with different GBs and lattice-mismatches for describing armchair-zigzag hybrid graphene nanoribbons was validated by ab initio molecular dynamic simulations and first principles electronic structure calculations. And to what extent the electronic properties can be tuned by the strain effects resulting from the lattice-mismatch and the GBs distortion in supercells was demonstrated. This work showed that the intrinsic strain in such system plays a decisive role in determining the band structure and spin polarization properties. Hybrid graphene nanoribbon was found to be ferromagnetic in the ground state, especially for the case of using the supercell with nearly-perfect lattice match. Its high Curie temperature suggests the potential applications of this material in spintronics.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Current-based detection of nonlocal spin transport in graphene for spin-based logic applications

Graphene has been proposed for novel spintronic devices due to its robust and efficient spin transport properties at room temperature. Some of the most promising proposals require current-based readout for integration purposes, but the current-based detection of spin accumulation has not yet been developed. In this work, we demonstrate current-based detection of spin transport in graphene using a modified nonlocal geometry. By adding a variable shunt resistor in parallel to the nonlocal voltmeter, we are able to systematically cross over from the conventional voltage-based detection to current-based detection. As the shunt resistor is reduced, the output current from the spin accumulation increases as the shunt resistance drops below a characteristic value R*. We analyze this behavior using a one-dimensional drift-diffusion model, which accounts well for the observed behavior. These results provide the experimental and theoretical foundation for current-based detection of nonlocal spin transport.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Inductance due to spin current

The inductance of spintronic devices that transport charge neutral spin currents is discussed. It is known that in a media that contains charge neutral spins, a time-varying electric field induces a spin current. We show that since the spin current itself produces an electric field, this implies existence of inductance and electromotive force when the spin current changes with time. The relations between the electromotive force and the corresponding flux, which is a vector calculated by the cross product of electric field and the trajectory of the device, are clarified. The relativistic origin generally renders an extremely small inductance, which indicates the advantage of spin current in building low inductance devices. The same argument also explains the inductance due to electric dipole current and applies to physical dipoles consist of polarized bound charges.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Optimization of exchange bias in Co{sub 2}FeAl{sub 0.5}Si{sub 0.5} Heusler alloy layers

We have fabricated and investigated IrMn{sub 3}/Co{sub 2}FeAl{sub 0.5}Si{sub 0.5} stacks to meet the criteria for future spintronic device applications which requires low-temperature crystallisation (<250 °C) and a large exchange bias H{sub ex} (>500 Oe). Such a system would form the pinned layer in spin-valve or tunnel junction applications. We have demonstrated that annealing at 300 °C which can achieve crystalline ordering in the Co{sub 2}FeAl{sub 0.5}Si{sub 0.5} layer giving ∼80% of the predicted saturation magnetisation. We have also induced an exchange bias of ∼240 Oe at the interface. These values are close to the above criteria and confirm the potential of using antiferromagnet/Heusler-alloy stacks in current Si-based processes.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2014

Magnetic structures of FeTiO{sub 3}-Fe{sub 2}O{sub 3} solid solution thin films studied by soft X-ray magnetic circular dichroism and ab initio multiplet calculations

The solid solutions between ilmenite (FeTiO{sub 3}) and hematite (α-Fe{sub 2}O{sub 3}) have recently attracted considerable attention as a spintronic material due to their interesting magnetic and electrical properties. In this study, the electronic and magnetic structures of epitaxially grown 0.6FeTiO{sub 3}·0.4Fe{sub 2}O{sub 3} solid solution thin films were investigated by combining x-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES), x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) for two different crystallographic projections, and first-principles theoretical calculations. The Fe L-edge XANES and XMCD spectra reveal that Fe is in the mixed-valent Fe{sup 2+}–Fe{sup 3+} states while Fe{sup 2+} ions are mainly responsible for the magnetization. Moreover, the experimental Fe L-edge XANES and XMCD spectra change depending on the incident x-ray directions, and the theoretical spectra explain such spectral features. We also find a large orbital magnetic moment, which can originate the magnetic anisotropy of this system. On the other hand, although the valence state of Ti was interpreted to be 4+ from the Ti L-edge XANES, XMCD signals indicate that some electrons are present in the Ti-3d orbital, which are coupled antiparallel to the magnetic moment of Fe{sup 2+} ions.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2014

The effect of spin-orbit coupling in band structure of few-layer graphene

Topological insulators are electronic materials that have a bulk band gap like an ordinary insulator but have protected conducting states on their edge or surface. This can be happened due to spin-orbit coupling and time-reversal symmetry. Moreover, the edge current flows through their edge or surface depends on its spin orientation and also it is robust against non-magnetic impurities. Therefore, topological insulators are predicted to be useful ranging from spintronics to quantum computation. Graphene was first predicted to be the precursor of topological insulator by Kane-Mele. They developed a Hamiltonian model to describe the gap opening in graphene. In this work, we investigate the band structure of few-layer graphene by using this model with analytical approach. The results of our calculations show that the gap opening occurs at K and K’ point, not only in single layer, but also in bilayer and trilayer graphene.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Induced spin-polarization of EuS at room temperature in Ni/EuS multilayers

Ni/EuS multilayers with excellent multilayer sequencing are deposited via e-beam evaporation on the native oxide of Si(100) wafers at 4 × 10{sup −9} millibars. The samples have very small surface and interface roughness and show sharp interfaces. Ni layers are nanocrystalline 4–8 nm thick and EuS layers are 2–4 nm thick and are either amorphous or nanocrystalline. Unlike for Co/EuS multilayers, all Eu ions are in divalent (ferromagnetic) state. We show a direct antiferromagnetic coupling between EuS and Ni layers. At room temperature, the EuS layers are spin-polarized due to the proximity of Ni. Therefore, Ni/EuS is a candidate for room-temperature spintronics applications.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Controllable 0 − π transition in iron pnictide superconductor junctions with a spacer of strong ferromagnet

We investigate the control of 0−π transition in Josephson junctions consisting of a highly spin-polarized ferromagnet coupled to two iron pnictide superconductors (SCs). It is shown that, a 0−π transition as a function of interband coupling strength is always exhibited, which can be experimentally used to discriminate the s{sub ±}-wave pairing symmetry in the iron pnictide SCs from the s{sub ++}-wave one in MgB{sub 2}. By tuning the doping level in the s{sub ±}-wave SCs, one can vary the interband coupling strength so as to obtain the controllable 0−π transition. This device may be realized with current technologies and has practical use in Cooper pair spintronics and quantum information.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Magnetotransport in MgO-based magnetic tunnel junctions grown by molecular beam epitaxy (invited)

The strong impact of molecular beam epitaxy growth and Synchrotron Radiation characterization tools in the understanding of fundamental issues in nanomagnetism and spintronics is illustrated through the example of fully epitaxial MgO-based Magnetic Tunnel Junctions (MTJs). If ab initio calculations predict very high tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) in such devices, some discrepancy between theory and experiments still exists. The influence of imperfections in real systems has thus to be considered like surface contaminations, structural defects, unexpected electronic states, etc. The influence of possible oxygen contamination at the Fe/MgO(001) interface is thus studied, and is shown to be not so detrimental to TMR as predicted by ab initio calculations. On the contrary, the decrease of dislocations density in the MgO barrier of MTJs using Fe{sub 1−x}V{sub x} electrodes is shown to significantly increase TMR. Finally, unexpected transport properties in Fe{sub 1−X}Co{sub x}/MgO/Fe{sub 1−X}Co{sub x} (001) are presented. With the help of spin and symmetry resolved photoemission and ab initio calculation, the TMR decrease for Co content higher than 25% is shown to come from the existence of an interface state and the shift of the empty Δ1 minority spin state towards the Fermi level.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Spin orbit splitting of the photon induced Fano resonance in an oscillating graphene electrostatic barrier

We investigate theoretically the effect of a time dependent oscillating potential on the transport property of the Dirac Fermion through a monolayer graphene electrostatic barrier under the influence of the Rashba spin orbit interaction. The time dependent problem is solved in the frame work of the non-perturbative Floquet approach. It is noted that the dynamic condition of the barrier may be controlled by tuning the Rashba parameter. Introduction of the spin orbit interaction causes splitting of the Fano resonance (FR), a characteristic feature in photon assisted tunneling. The separation between the spin split FR's gives an indirect measure of the fine structure of the quasi-hole bound state inside the barrier. The present findings on the Rashba splitting of the FR and its external control by tuning the oscillating field parameters might have potential for applications in spintronic devices, especially in the spin field effect transistors. The spin polarization of different Floquet sidebands is found to be quite sensitive to the spin-pseudospin interaction.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Electrical switching effect of a single-unit-cell CrO{sub 2} layer on rutile TiO{sub 2} surface

Rutile CrO{sub 2} is the most important half-metallic material with nearly 100% spin polarization at the Fermi level, and rutile TiO{sub 2} is a wide-gap semiconductor with many applications. Here, we show through first-principles investigation that a single-unit-cell CrO{sub 2} layer on rutile TiO{sub 2} (001) surface is ferromagnetic and semiconductive with a gap of 0.54 eV, and its electronic state transits abruptly to a typical metallic state when an electrical field is applied. Consequently, this makes an interesting electrical switching effect which may be useful in designing spintronic devices.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2014

Spin-dependent transport behavior in C{sub 60} and Alq{sub 3} based spin valves with a magnetite electrode (invited)

The spin-dependent transport behavior in organic semiconductors (OSs) is generally observed at low temperatures, which likely results from poor spin injection efficiency at room temperature from the ferromagnetic metal electrodes to the OS layer. Possible reasons for this are the low Curie temperature and/or the small spin polarization efficiency for the ferromagnetic electrodes used in these devices. Magnetite has potential as an advanced candidate for use as the electrode in spintronic devices, because it can achieve 100% spin polarization efficiency in theory, and has a high Curie temperature (850 K). Here, we fabricated two types of organic spin valves using magnetite as a high efficiency electrode. C{sub 60} and 8-hydroxyquinoline aluminum (Alq{sub 3}) were employed as the OS layers. Magnetoresistance ratios of around 8% and over 6% were obtained in C{sub 60} and Alq{sub 3}-based spin valves at room temperature, respectively, which are two of the highest magnetoresistance ratios in organic spin valves reported thus far. The magnetoresistance effect was systemically investigated by varying the thickness of the Alq{sub 3} layer. Moreover, the temperature dependence of the magnetoresistance ratios for C{sub 60} and Alq{sub 3}-based spin valves were evaluated to gain insight into the spin-dependent transport behavior. This study provides a useful method in designing organic spin devices operated at room temperature.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗