Magnetic electrodes for spin-polarized injection into InAs

Tailored magnetic electrodes are an important prerequisite to inject and detect charge carriers into a semiconductor with defined spins. Especially, if a gate electrode is used to tune the polarization of the carriers by the Rashba effect, magnetic electrodes providing simultaneously a high degree of polarization and a low stray field are important. We have simulated magnetization and hysteresis curves of permalloy electrode configurations and verified our theoretical results by magnetic-force microscopy for electrodes prepared on p-type InAs single crystals. This semiconductor exhibits a strong, gate-voltage dependent Rashba effect and therefore is a candidate for the realization of the spin transistor. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(00)02610-3].