Injection, detection and gate voltage control of spins in the spin field effect transistor

Abstract

We demonstrate electrical spin injection and gate voltage control of spin precession in an InAs quantum well channel that has Permalloy injector and detector, and is covered by a gate oxide and a Au gate electrode. The electrical injection and detection of ballistic spin-polarized electrons are characterized using conventional lateral spin valve techniques. An external magnetic field is used to overcome the shape anisotropy of the magnetizations of injector and detector. We can then inject spins that have both spin orientation and velocity along the axis of the channel, and we observe an oscillatory channel conductance as a function of monotonically increasing gate voltage. This conductance oscillation is the hallmark of a spin field effect transistor. After presenting the basic results, we discuss issues associated with (1) the Hanle effect in a two-dimensional electron gas with high spin-orbit interaction and (2) the observation of a conductance oscillation in a multimode (two-dimensional) channel. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3576140]