Suppression of spin transport in ferromagnet/oxide/semiconductor junctions by magnetic impurities in the tunnel barrier

We have studied how the insertion of sub-monolayer amounts of Mn impurities in the middle of the oxide tunnel barrier of Fe/GeO2 on p-type Ge affects the spin transport, using three-terminal Hanle measurements. Strikingly, the magnitude of the Hanle spin voltage is strongly reduced by increasing the amount of Mn dopants and is even completely absent for devices having an amount of Mn impurities equivalent to a 0.2-nm-thick layer. This demonstrates that magnetic impurities in the tunnel barrier are detrimental to the spin transport in ferromagnet/oxide/semiconductor junctions, and that the localized states associated with such magnetic impurities do not produce three-terminal Hanle spin signals. (C) 2016 The Japan Society of Applied Physics