Multiferroic heterostructures for spin filter applications: An ab initio study

作者：Borek Stephan^*; Braun Juergen; Ebert Hubert; Minar Jan

来源：Physical Review B, 2015, 92(17): 174408.

DOI：10.1103/PhysRevB.92.174408

Novel imaging spin-filter techniques, which are based on low-energy electron diffraction, are currently of high scientific interest. To improve the spin-detection efficiency a variety of new materials have been introduced in recent years. A new class of promising spin-filter materials are represented by multiferroic systems, as both magnetic and electric ordering exist in these materials. We have investigated Fe/BaTiO3(001) for spin-filter applications, which is a prominent candidate due to its moderate spontaneous polarization of the BaTiO3 substrate. Therefore we calculated diffraction patterns for spin polarized electrons incident on the Fe surface. Motivated by the fact that spin polarized low-energy electron diffraction is a surface sensitive method, we investigated the alterations of exchange and spin orbit scattering induced by switching the BaTiO3 polarization. As shown by our studies the system obviously offers the possibility of realizing a multiferroic spin filter and manipulating the spin-orbit and exchange scattering by an external electric field. The calculations have been done for a large range of kinetic energies and polar angles of the diffracted electrons considering different numbers of Fe monolayers.

• 出版日期2015-11-9