1. Half-metallicity proven using fully spin-polarized tunnelling
- Author
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Manuel Bibes, Albert Fert, Martin Bowen, Eric Jacquet, Alain Barthélémy, Stefan Blügel, Daniel Wortmann, and J.-P. Contour
- Subjects
Condensed matter physics ,Chemistry ,Fermi level ,Fermi energy ,Electron ,Electronic structure ,Condensed Matter Physics ,Semimetal ,Tunnel effect ,symbols.namesake ,Condensed Matter::Superconductivity ,symbols ,Condensed Matter::Strongly Correlated Electrons ,General Materials Science ,Quantum tunnelling composite ,Quantum tunnelling - Abstract
A half-metal has been defined as a material with propagating electron states at the Fermi energy only for one of the spin directions. But is it fully half-metallic, that is without electrons with opposite spin at that energy? We have studied the spin-conserving process of tunnelling between La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 half-metallic electrodes across an ultrathin SrTiO3 insulator. This experiment demonstrates that the class of half-metallic materials indeed exists at non-zero temperatures, even at interfaces. It also shows that a fully spin-polarized tunnelling current may persist at large bias.
- Published
- 2005
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