Fermi level and bands offsets determination in insulating (Ga,Mn)N/GaN structures.

The Fermi level position in (Ga,Mn)N has been determined from the period-analysis of GaN-related Franz-Keldysh oscillation obtained by contactless electroreflectance in a series of carefully prepared by molecular beam epitaxy GaN/Ga1-xMnxN/GaN(template) bilayers of various Mn concentration x. It is shown that the Fermi level in (Ga,Mn)N is strongly pinned in the middle of the band gap and the thickness of the depletion layer is negligibly small. For x > 0.1% the Fermi level is located about 1.25-1.55 eV above the valence band, that is very close to, but visibly below the Mn-related Mn2+/Mn3+ impurity band. The accumulated data allows us to estimate the Mn-related band offsets at the (Ga,Mn)N/GaN interface. It is found that most of the band gap change in (Ga,Mn)N takes place in the valence band on the absolute scale and amounts to -0.028 ± 0.008 eV/% Mn. The strong Fermi level pinning in the middle of the band gap, no carrier conductivity within the Mn-related impurity band, and a good homogeneity enable a novel functionality of (Ga,Mn)N as a semi-insulating buffer layers for applications in GaN-based heterostuctures.

Wurtzite (Ga,Mn)As nanowire shells with ferromagnetic properties.

(Ga,Mn)As having a wurtzite crystal structure was coherently grown by molecular beam epitaxy on the {1100} side facets of wurtzite (Ga,In)As nanowires and further encapsulated by (Ga,Al)As and low temperature GaAs. For the first time, a truly long-range ferromagnetic magnetic order is observed in non-planar (Ga,Mn)As, which is attributed to a more effective hole confinement in the shell containing Mn by the proper selection/choice of both the core and outer shell materials.

Stretching magnetism with an electric field in a nitride semiconductor.

The significant inversion symmetry breaking specific to wurtzite semiconductors, and the associated spontaneous electrical polarization, lead to outstanding features such as high density of carriers at the GaN/(Al,Ga)N interface-exploited in high-power/high-frequency electronics-and piezoelectric capabilities serving for nanodrives, sensors and energy harvesting devices. Here we show that the multifunctionality of nitride semiconductors encompasses also a magnetoelectric effect allowing to control the magnetization by an electric field. We first demonstrate that doping of GaN by Mn results in a semi-insulating material apt to sustain electric fields as high as 5 MV cm-1. Having such a material we find experimentally that the inverse piezoelectric effect controls the magnitude of the single-ion magnetic anisotropy specific to Mn3+ ions in GaN. The corresponding changes in the magnetization can be quantitatively described by a theory developed here.