skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Strain-induced reduction of surface roughness dominated spin relaxation in MOSFETs

Journal Article · · AIP Conference Proceedings
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4848413· OSTI ID:22261836
; ; ; ;  [1]
  1. Institute for Microelectronics, TU Wien, Gußhausstraße 27-29, A-1040 Vienna (Austria)

Semiconductor spintronics is a rapidly developing field with large impact on microelectronics. Using spin may help to reduce power consumption and increase computational speed. Silicon is perfectly suited for spin-based applications. It is characterized by a weak spin-orbit interaction which should result in a long spin lifetime. However, recent experiments indicate the lifetime is greatly reduced in gated structures. Thus, understanding the peculiarities of the spin-orbit effects on the subband structure and details of the spin propagation in surface layers and thin silicon films is urgently needed. We investigate the contribution of the spin-orbit interaction to the equivalent valley splitting and calculate the spin relaxation matrix elements by using a perturbative k ⋅p approach. We demonstrate that applying uniaxial stress along the [110] direction may considerably suppress electron spin relaxation in silicon surface layers and thin films.

OSTI ID:
22261836
Journal Information:
AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1566, Issue 1; Conference: ICPS 2012: 31. international conference on the physics of semiconductors, Zurich (Switzerland), 29 Jul - 3 Aug 2012; Other Information: (c) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English