Magnetic properties of epitaxial oxide heterostructures

Diluted Magnetic Semiconductors (DMS) are of great interest as injection sources for spin-polarized currents into semiconductors. Epitaxial devices have been synthesized with an intermediate spacer layer of the same semiconductor (zinc oxide, ZnO) used to produce the DMS material (ZnCoO) ensuring a homoepitaxial junction to help reduce the interface states and conduction mismatch. We observe a large magnetoresistance of about 32% in the devices at low temperatures. The present work suggests that spin polarized transport could be achieved with DMS materials acting as the source of injected spins into a non-magnetic host.