Spin-dependent transport properties of a GaMnAs-based vertical spin metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor structure

We fabricate a vertical spin metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (spin-MOSFET) structure, which is composed of an epitaxial single-crystal heterostructure with a ferromagnetic-semiconductor GaMnAs source/drain, and investigate its spin-dependent transport properties. We modulate the drain-source current I-DS by similar to +/- 0.5% with a gate-source voltage of +/- 10.8V and also modulate I-DS by up to 60% with changing the magnetization configuration of the GaMnAs source/drain at 3.5 K. The magnetoresistance ratio is more than two orders of magnitude higher than that obtained in the previous studies on spin MOSFETs. Our result shows that a vertical structure is one of the hopeful candidates for spin MOSFET when the device size is reduced to a sub-micron or nanometer scale. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.