In various material systems, an antiferromagnetic phase was found to coexist with a weak ferromagneticlike signal, while symmetry-based theoretical predictions indicate a possibility of a nonzero anomalous Hall effect (AHE) even in the absence of sample magnetization. This is the case of nominally collinear antiferromagnets, in particular, hexagonal MnTe, where the AHE and no detectable magnetization have been recently reported. To clarify the role of magnetization, we present a study of bulk MnTe samples, combining experiment and theory. We demonstrate that the existence of the AHE in the hexagonal MnTe is accompanied by the presence of a weak but detectable ferromagneticlike signal, vanishing at the N & eacute;el temperature. In contrast to thin layer samples, we find that the AHE hysteresis loop shows an opposite sign and Barkhausen-like jumps. We introduce a macrospin model involving the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya type interaction, which explains the existence of a nonzero magnetic moment in the absence of external field and reproduces well hysteretic behavior of the AHE. Using analysis of N & eacute;el-vector-dependent Berry curvature, we show that the intrinsic AHE in hexagonal MnTe can be nonzero even when the magnetization vanishes and, also, that it changes sign depending on the Fermi energy position.
Anomalous Hall effect (AHE) plays important role in the rapidly developing field of antiferromagnetic spintronics. It has been recently discussed that it can be a feature of not only uncompensated magnetic systems but also in altermagnetic materials. Hexagonal MnTe belongs to this appealing group of compounds exhibiting AHE and is commonly perceived as magnetically compensated. Here, we demonstrate that bulk form of MnTe exhibits small but detectable magnetic moment correlating with hysteretic behaviour of the AHE. We formulate a phenomenological model which explains how this feature allows to create a disbalance between states with opposite N\'eel vector and prevent the AHE signal from averaging out to zero. Moreover, we show how the dependence of AHE on the N\'eel vector arises on microscopical level and highlight the differences in Berry curvature between magnetically compensated and uncompensated systems.
The influence of hydrostatic pressure on the Curie temperature T-C of thin ferromagnetic (Ga,Mn)As layers is studied. New experimental data unambiguously point to both positive and negative pressure-induced changes of Curie temperature. The positive pressure coefficient is observed for samples with relatively high values of T-C and can be quantitatively described by the p-d Zener model of carrier-mediated ferromagnetism within the six-band k . p formalism and the ab initio approach. First-principles calculations of structural, electronic, and magnetic properties of (Ga,Mn)As show that antiferromagnetic coupling of substitutional Mn atoms with interstitial ones may account for a decrease of T-C under pressure in samples having a substantial concentration of interstitial Mn.
We have studied multicarrier contributions to the conductivity in low concentration (with Hall concentration below 1×1018 cm−3) nondoped bulk n-InN samples using Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) in the tilted magnetic field as well as variable field resistivity tensor measurements. In some samples, the Shubnikov-de Haas effect also revealed, besides 3D electron gas, high mobility 2D electron contributions (with transport and quantum mobilities reaching the values of 5060 cm2/V s and 1800 cm2/V s, respectively, for one of our samples), which could hardly be assigned to the surface electrons as the latter are commonly believed to have mobility too low to be detected at magnetic fields not exceeding 12 T in our SdH measurements. The values of the effective masses derived from the temperature dependences of the SdH oscillation amplitudes scale with the concentration of 2D channels and are typical for low concentration InN, thus confirming that these contributions are presumably located on the InN side of some interfaces. This is one of the first experimental evaluations of the effective mass of nonsurface-related 2D electron gas in InN grown on GaN.
An epitaxial layer of HgCdTe—a THz detector—was studied in magnetotransmission, magnetoconductivity and magnetophotoconductivity experiments at cryogenic temperatures. In the optical measurements, monochromatic excitation with photon frequency ranging from 0.05 THz to 2.5 THz was used. We show a resonant response of the detector at magnetic fields as small as 10 mT with the width of the resonant line equal to about 5 mT. Application of a circular polarizer at 2.5 THz measurements allowed for confirming selection rules predicted by the theory of optical transitions in a narrow-gap semiconductor and to estimate the band-gap to be equal to about 4.5 meV. The magnetoconductivity tensor was determined as a function of magnetic field and temperature 2 K < T < 120 K and analysed with a standard one-carrier conductivity model and the mobility spectrum technique. The sample showed n-type conductivity at all temperatures. At temperatures above about 30 K, conductivity was found to be reasonably described by the one-carrier model. At lower temperatures, this description is not accurate. The algorithm of the spectrum of mobility applied to data measured below 30 K showed presence of three types of carriers which were tentatively interpreted as electrons, light holes and heavy holes. The mobility of electrons and light holes is of the order of 10 6 cm 2 /Vs at the lowest temperatures. Magnetophotoconductivity experiments allowed for proposing a detector working at 2 K and 50 mT with a flat response between 0.05 THz and 2.5 THz.
We critically discuss various experimental methods to determine Curie temperature T-C of (Ga,Mn)As thin layers or other conducing magnetic materials by means of electric charge transport measurements. They all base on the influence of sample magnetization on the magnetoresistivity tensor <(rho)overcap>and are an alternative to the method based upon an analysis of the temperature derivative of the sample resistance (Novak a al., 2008). These methods can be applied even when standard SQUID magnetometers are difficult or impossible to use - for example for extremely small samples or in the case of experiments performed at very specific physical conditions, e.g. at high hydrostatic pressure inside the clamp cell. We show that the use of the so called Arrott plot prepared with the use of high magnetic field isotherms rho(xx)(H-0), rho(x)y(H-0) (H-0 - external magnetic field) may lead to substantial (of the order of 10 K) divergence of the obtained T-c values depending on the assumptions which are necessary to make in this case and depending on the direction of a magnetic anisotropy easy axis. We also propose a number of ways how to obtain, basing on low magnetic field isotherms rho(xx)(H-0), rho(xy)(H-0) clear and characteristic features which are closely related to the ferromagnetic-paramagnetic phase transition.
In this paper we show that the widely accepted method of the determination of Curie temperature (TC) in (Ga,Mn)As samples, based on the position of the peak in the temperature derivative of the resistivity,completely fails in the case of non-metallic and low-TC unannealed samples. In this case we propose an alternative method, also based on electric transport measurements, which exploits temperature dependence of the second derivative of the resistivity upon magnetic field.
We have measured thermoelectric power in two series of polar InN:Mg samples with wide range of Mg content having In- as well as N-growth polarities. We have observed essential differences between both polarities: In the “p-type window” centered at about 1 × 1019 cm−3 of [Mg], reported recently, the thermoelectric power changed its sign from n to p-type, only for In-growth polarity samples. These results have been confirmed by the so-called mobility spectrum analysis. It strongly supports the suggestion that In-growth polarity is more propitious to p-type conduction in InN:Mg than the N one.
The low-frequency fluctuations of tunneling current in GaAs/AlAs/GaAs single-barrier heterostructure devices were measured for three samples with different Si-planar-doping in the center of 10.2 nm-thick barrier. The diameter of the mesas were close to 100 micrometers. Upon changes of the biasing voltage across the barrier the character of noise spectra also changed - depending on various electron transport mechanisms in the barrier. We emphasise that noise measurement is much more sensitive than simple current-voltage characteristics.
The coexistence of two types of carriers (free electrons and free holes) in InN:Mg and their competition is demonstrated by the temperature and magnetic-field-induced change of the sign of thermopower (α) as well as the maximum entropy mobility spectrum analysis. The results confirm the existence of alternative carrier channels in addition to the n-type surface inversion layer and p-type bulk. They also show that In-polarity can be propitious for occurrence of p-type conductivity.
During our investigations of tunneling process in thin 7 nm thick CaAs/AlAs/GaAs vertical single-barrier tunneling structure with Si delta-doping inside the barrier we have observed fluctuations of the tunneling current which exhibited large Lorentzian noise with intensity depending oh biasing voltage. We have shown that Lorentzian noise originates from multilevel random telegraph noise of the small number of fluctuators which influence the tunneling process. Time-domain analysis of the current noise measured for temperatures between 4.2 K and 50 K enabled to determine the thermal activation energies of these fluctuators lying between 0.8 and 3 meV.
‐-doping in AlAs. In the I(V ) characteristics, measured at 4 K, two kinds of peaks were observed: related to resonant tunneling via donors states in the barrier, and through X-minimum quantum well subbands. The results are compared to those previously obtained for analogous samples grown along [001] direction. The investigations reveal dierent symmetry of donor states in both cases.
The effect of hydrostatic pressure on the paramagnetic-ferromagnetic phase transition has been studied in (Ga,Mn)As. The variation in the Curie temperature (T-C) with pressure was monitored by two transport methods: (1) measurement of zero-field resistivity versus temperature rho(T) and (2) dependence on temperature of the Hall voltage hysteresis loop. Two specimens of different resistivity characteristics were examined. The measured pressure-induced changes in T-C were relatively small (on the order of 1 K/GPa) for both samples, however they were opposite for the two.
The experimental results of the low temperature (T = 4.2 K) low-frequency current fluctuations measurements in the single-barrier resonant tunneling GaAs/AlAs/GaAs vertical devices with Si delta-doping in the center of the 10-nm thick AlAs barrier are reported. The dimensions of the device were 200 mu m by 200 mu m. For the small bias voltages (low transmission of the barrier) there is only the shot noise with Fano factor F close to I observed. For higher voltages the generation-recombination-like and/or 1/f(alpha) noise arises and superimposes on the shot noise.
The Zeeman splittings of a Si shallow donor in AlAs and of a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in GaAs are evidenced by resonant tunneling spectroscopy in submicrometer GaAs/AlAs/GaAs junctions. In magnetic field, the donor acts as a spin-sensitive probe of the spin-polarized density of states in the emitter. In the current-voltage characteristic the two splittings are resolved, which allows us to estimate the Lande g factors for the impurity g(I)=+1.96 +/- 0.16 and for the 2DEG. Because of spin conservation in the tunneling between the 2DEG and the donor, the relative sign of the two g factors can be determined.
We measured lateral ac transport (up to 20 MHz), thermopower, as well as resistivity and Hall effect in InN:Mg samples with various Mg content. The sign of the Hall effect for all the samples was negative (electrons), however, the thermopower (α) measurements have shown the p-type sign of α for moderate Mg content—in the window centered around 1×1019 cm−3. Further overdoping with Mg yields donor type of defects and the change of thermoelectric power sign. The ac measurements performed as a function of frequency revealed that in both samples exhibiting and nonexhibiting p-type sign of thermopower, the n-type inversion layer at the surface does not prevent the electric contact to the bulk layer. Therefore we conclude that the n-type Hall effect invariably reported for all the Mg-doped samples originates from electron domination in mobility-weighted contributions of both types of carriers.
Why to measure the noise? Time dependent fluctuations of a tunneling current re‐ flects the temporal correlations between charge transfer events through a conductor. For mesoscopic systems where Pauli priciple and Coulomb interactions play im‐ portant role, the deviations from the classical Poisso‐ nian full shot noise power density 2eI can provide addi‐ tional information about interactions between electrons inside the tunneling barrier and the mechanism of the transport (e.g. existence and number of localized states which participate in transport) [1]. How to measure noise-signal ?
Resonant tunnelling via single impurities placed in a single barrier was experimentally studied. The typically observed structures in the current-voltage characteristics seem to be paired. Such a pair can be interpreted as ground and excited states of an impurity, related to X-xy and X-z valleys, which is in agreement with the results obtained for big mesas. However, it is not clear why X-xy states can be seen without any phonon participation.
In this paper we show that intersubband scattering can lead to, apparent inconsistency of the experimental results obtained by means of classical and quantum transport measurements and this discrepancy is entirely connected with the usage of classical formulae to describe magnetic field dependence of a conductivity tensor. We prove that there is no contradiction in our observations and that the models describing quantum oscillations and magnetic-field dependence of the conductivity tensor, which are present in the literature, complement each other.
A single impurity is used to probe the local density of states of a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in a resonant tunneling experiment. The studies have been performed in the GaAs/AlAs/GaAs system, with Si donors incorporated into the AlAs layer, on submicrometer junctions. The current-voltage characteristics clearly show peaks corresponding to the formation of Landau levels. Moreover, additional fine-structure superimposed on the Landau levels are resolved. Detailed magnetic field studies suggest that those peaks reflect the single particle states of the Landau levels. The surprisingly rapid shift of these additional features in a magnetic field is reproduced in a model, which takes into account disorder in the plane of the 2DEG.