ISIS Neutron and Muon Source Data Journal

MuSR detection of optically-injected spin-polarized electrons in Silicon

Abstract: Silicon is currently the base of all modern electronics and advanced computing. One route to future advanced computing called spintronics exploits the energy saving and quantum information encoding possible in the spin, rather than the charge of the electron. Silicon spintronics research has been impeded by the generally accepted absence of a means to optically inject spin-polarized electrons due to its indirect bandgap. We recently observed it is possible to inject spin-polarized electrons and detect these spin-polarized electrons using the difference in how they interact with spin-polarized muons. In the proposed research we hope to understand the detailed microscopic mechanism for the muon sensitivity to spin-polarized electrons and to quantify what fraction of optically-injected electrons are spin-polarized. The larger the fraction the more impact it will have on Silicon spintronics.

Public release date: 08 December 2019

Principal Investigator: Dr Harry Tom
Experimenter: Miss Jingliang Miao
Experimenter: Dr Ke Wang
Experimenter: Dr James Lord
Experimenter: Mr John Muse
Experimenter: Professor Alan Drew
Experimenter: Dr Koji Yokoyama

DOI: 10.5286/ISIS.E.83551206

Parent DOI: 10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1620348

ISIS Experiment Number: RB1620348

Part Number: 1

Date of Experiment: 01 December 2016

Publisher: STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source

Data format: RAW/Nexus
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Data Citation

The recommended format for citing this dataset in a research publication is as:
[author], [date], [title], [publisher], [doi]

For Example:
Dr Harry Tom et al; (2016): MuSR detection of optically-injected spin-polarized electrons in Silicon, STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, https://doi.org/10.5286/ISIS.E.83551206