Highly spin-polarized carbon-based spinterfaces

We deploy topographical and spectroscopic techniques to show that a strongly spin-polarized interface arises between ferromagnetic cobalt and an amorphous carbon layer. Scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy show how a semiconducting carbon film with a low band gap of about 0.4eV is formed a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Carbon (New York) 2015-06, Vol.87, p.269-274
Main Authors: Djeghloul, F., Garreau, G., Gruber, M., Joly, L., Boukari, S., Arabski, J., Bulou, H., Scheurer, F., Hallal, A., Bertran, F., Le Fèvre, P., Taleb-Ibrahimi, A., Wulfhekel, W., Beaurepaire, E., Hajjar-Garreau, S., Wetzel, P., Bowen, M., Weber, W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Band spectra
Carbon
Cobalt
Fermi surfaces
Ferromagnetism
Photoelectron spectroscopy
Physics
Scanning tunneling microscopy
Spectroscopy
X-rays
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Summary:We deploy topographical and spectroscopic techniques to show that a strongly spin-polarized interface arises between ferromagnetic cobalt and an amorphous carbon layer. Scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy show how a semiconducting carbon film with a low band gap of about 0.4eV is formed atop the metallic interface. To understand how the cobalt/carbon interface is formed, we used X-ray photoemission spectroscopy to study the hybridization state of carbon. We find that the semiconducting layer consists mainly of sp2-bonded carbon atoms with a sp2-to-sp3 ratio between 1.4 and 1.8. The spin-polarized properties of the cobalt/carbon interface are studied by spin-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. We observe interface states close to the Fermi energy that are not exclusive to cobalt. These electronic states reveal a high degree of spin polarization at room temperature.
ISSN:0008-6223
1873-3891
DOI:10.1016/j.carbon.2015.02.043