Excitation and transport of hot holes in a magnetic tunnel transistor

Abstract

Spin-dependent transport of nonequilibrium holes has been investigated using a magnetic tunnel transistor in which a magnetic tunnel junction is combined with a p-type semiconductor. The device can be used for direct hole injection and collection, or in reverse mode in which holes are created by inelastic decay of injected hot electrons via electron-hole pair generation. In the latter case, the collected hole current is larger, and a magnetocurrent (MC) of 90% is observed at an emitter bias of -0.8 V. This positive and large MC indicates that hot holes generated by hot electrons of majority spin contribute mostly to the collector current. (C) 2006 American Institute of Physics.