Origin of the tunnel anisotropic magnetoresistance in Ga1-xMnxAs/ZnSe/Ga1-xMnxAs magnetic tunnel junctions of II-VI/III-V heterostructures -: art. no. 086604

We investigated spin-dependent transport in magnetic tunnel junctions made of III-V Ga1-xMnxAs electrodes and II-VI ZnSe tunnel barriers. The high tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) ratio up to 100% we observed indicates high spin polarization at the barrier/electrodes interfaces. We found anisotropic tunneling conductance having a magnitude of 10% with respect to the direction of magnetization to linearly depend on the magnetic anisotropy energy of Ga1-xMnxAs. This proves that the spin-orbit interactions in the valence band of Ga1-xMnxAs are responsible for the tunnel anisotropic magnetoresistance (TAMR) effect.