3 The spin valve transistor: foundations and prospects

3.1 Background 44
3.2 The spin valve transistor principle 46
3.3 Detailed electron transport in the spin valve transistor 48
3.3.1 Schottky (Thermionic) emission 48
3.3.2 Base transport 54
3.3.3 Quantum mechanical reflections 62
3.3.4 Collector efficiency 64
3.3.5 Avalanche multiplication 67
3.3.6 Collector leak current 69
3.4 Other injection possibilities 72
3.4.1 Tunnel emission 72
3.4.2 BEEM 74
3.4.3 Photo emission 78
3.5 Metal base transistors reported in literature 79
3.6 Application potential and noise of the spin-valve transistor 83
3.7 Summary 87
3
THE SPIN VALVE TRANSISTOR:
FOUNDATIONS AND PROSPECTS
As described in the previous chapter, in ordinary current-in-plane (CIP) measurements,
channeling,shunting and diffusive surface scattering diminishes and complicates the spin-valve
effect. Experiments with currents perpendicular to the planes (CPP) prove very useful for
fundamental studies of electron transport, yet application of the larger effect to sensors is
cumbersome due to the very small resistances involved. As discussed, the difference in
resistance between parallel and antiparallel magnetizations is caused by long and short mean free
paths respectively. The mean free paths thus represent the spin valve effect more intimately than
the macroscopic resistance. In order to measure mean free paths, there are two possibilities:
either reject scattered electrons based on energy loss, or based on loss of direction. The first
cannot be employed for Fermi electrons since the energy loss is insignificant. For the latter, an
electron angle detection mechanism is necessary. A structure than incorporates both
mechanisms, electron energy and angle selection, is the metal base transistor. Metal base
transistors have been proposed for ultra high frequency operations [11.5] because of their
negligible base transport time and low base resistance, however, low gain prospects have limited
their advent. Modification of the base with a functional material such as a metalllic spin-valve
and use of the collector current for sensor purposes has never been done before, yet is very
promising for applications and fundamental electron transport studies.
3.1 Background
Historically, the first proposal of a hot electron injection device was made by Mead [11.23]. His
device, a MOMOM (metal-oxide-metal-oxide-metal), belongs to the category of ballistic
transport transistors (Fig. 3-1a). It was based on electrons tunneling from a metal emitter through
a thin oxidebarrier into a high energy state in a metal base.
3.1 Introduction
Fig. 3-1 (a) Schematic cross section of the hot electron triode or MOMOM metal base transistor
(b) an idealized energy level diagram of the hot electron triode structure [11.23]
These injected hot electrons were then able to surmount the second oxide barrier in contrast to
the base electrons resting in equilibrium state (Fig. 3-1b). The lower metal contact was thus able
to collect the injected electrons. The number of electrons that can be collected depends
exponentially on their mean free path in the metallic base, because only electrons with their
injection energy and initial perpendicular momentum conserved, can be collected (ballistic
electrons) due to the energy barrier and angle of acceptance of the collector. The MOMOM
device was potentially very fast because of the thin base, which leads to a very short transit time
(10-14 s.) and because the metal layers have high conductivity, yielding small RC time
constants. Later versions of this device had the second MOM replaced by a metal semiconductor
junction, because of low collector efficiency due to backscattering of electrons in the (too thick)
collector oxide [11.18]. This resulted in a transistor structure called the MOMS (Fig. 3-2a)
Fig. 3-2 Later versions of the metal base transistor, (a) the metal-oxide-metal-semiconductor
(MOMS) [11.18] and the (b) semiconductor-metal-semiconductor (SMS) structure.
Scattering in the emitter oxide and resulting energy loss of the injected electrons still limited the
amount of electrons able to pass the collector barrier, and restricted the current gain to small
values. Metals base transistors which employ thermionic rather than tunneling injection of hot
carriers into the base, were proposed by Rose [11.24], Atalla and Kahng [11.25] and Geppert
[11.12] in the form of a semiconductor-metal-semiconductor (SMS) structure (Fig. 3-2b). The
current gain was increased as compared to the aforementioned structures, yet was still smaller
than 0.5. This is related to various transport factors which are discussed later in this chapter, and
to the problem of growing a single crystal semiconductor on top of a metal. As the latter has
been solved by using metal bonding in vacuum (chapter 5) the use of the SMS metal base
transistor for high frequency purposes