Pulsed LASER deposition (PLD) is widely recognized as excellent deposition technique owing to stoichiometric transfer of target material, easy preparation and high quality. Thin films from few nanometers to micrometer regime can be fabricated with equal ease. Although a batch process is not suitable for mass scale industrial production, PLD is a versatile technique, efficient and convenient for high quality basic research.  This thesis illustrates the use of PLD technique to study the emerging trends in tailoring multifunctional magnetic thin films both from basic nanoscience and device development point of view.      After a comprehensive review of magnetism in chapter 1: entitled ‘A journey through classical to modern trends in magnetism, and multifunctional thin film devices’ followed by a reasonably thorough discussion on Pulsed Laser thin film technique in Chapter 2, we present: Studies of tailoring composite high energy product permanent magnetic FePtB based thin films for applications in NEMS /MEMS, (Chapter 3). Study of search for new multiferroic materials by investigating the properties of Chromites. Crystalline Chromites are antiferromagnetic below 150oC.  However depositing thin films by PLD of the crystalline 95.5% dense targets produced by Surface Plasma Sintering, we discovered that the resulting films were amorphous and ferromagnetic beyond room temperature. Moreover advanced spectroscopic techniques revealed that the amorphized state is metallic with Cr in a mixed valence state.   An understanding of the underlying physics of the observed phenomenon has been carried out based on first principles calculations.  These results are now being considered for publication in a high profile journal.  Extensive studies on the films showing that these materials are ferromagnetic, but not ferroelectric are discussed in chapter 4. A preliminary presentation of these studies was pier reviewed and published in MRS symposium proceedings. Fabrication of Room temperature, Transparent, high moment soft ferromagnetic amorphous Bulk metallic glass based FeBNbY thin films by PLD, suitable for Nanolithography in NEMS/MEMS device development .  (Chapter 5) From a basic study point of view on new trends on magnetism we present: 4. The use of PLD technique to demonstrate room temperature ferromagnetism in undoped MgO, and V-doped MgO thin films.  Both of these oxides which do not contain any intrinsically magnetic elements and are diamagnetic in their bulk form belong to a new class of magnetic films, the so called d0magnets signifying that robust above room temperature ferromagnetism arising from defects and controlled carriers and no occupied d-states can be tailored in semiconductors and insulators.  These, mostly ZnO and MgO based thin films which may be classified as Dilute Magnetic Semiconductors, DMS, and Dilute Magnetic Insulators, DMI, are now the materials of active interest in future Electronics involving components which exploit both charge and spin of electrons in the arena of SPINTRONICS. Extensive characterization of magnetic, electrical, optical properties and microscopic structure has ensured development of high quality magnetic materials for future applications. Further research on these promising materials is expected to yield new generation spintronic devices for better performance in terms of efficiency, energy consumption and miniaturization of sizes. / QC 20120511

Materials exhibiting new functionalities due to interdependent electric (e.g. conductivity) and magnetic properties are potentially interesting for spintronics applications. We have investigated electronic and magnetic properties by means of x-ray spectroscopies and SQUID magnetometry in several magnetic materials, often in the form of thin films, which have shown promising properties for applications. One of the main subjects has been studies of inter-diffusion between layers in multilayer structures, which is an important factor for spin-dependent transport and magnetic properties. These studies have been performed by high kinetic (HIKE) photoemission spectroscopy where high photon energies increase the bulk sensitivity in comparison to soft x-ray photoemission spectroscopy. Cu/Ni multilayers were studied mainly as a model system and revealed a diffusion process that was dependent on layer thicknesses and capping materials. CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB, which is used as a magnetic field sensor in hard drives, has recently been shown to exhibit a perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) switchable by electric fields. We have studied both the interface quality and magnetic properties of thin CoFeB layers exhibiting PMA. Layered structures of full Heusler alloys Co2MnGe/Rh2CuSn have been proposed as a promising candidate for current-perpendicular-to-plane giant magneto-resistance sensors. Using HIKE,we have shown that diffusion of atoms, mainly Mn, occurs at temperatures lower than what is used in device fabrication, which likely contributes to the limited magneto-resistance values obtained. Lately, a large body of research has been performed on semiconductors doped with transition metal elements with the hope to find a ferromagnetic semiconductor at room temperature, a foundation for new devices combining spin and charge in their functionality. We have investigated Co and Fe doping in ZnO for different concentrations of the dopants and different annealing temperatures. The Co and Fe atoms are shown to forms clusters for which antiferromagnetic interactions are dominating.

Irreversible thermodynamics is a widely-applicable toolset that extends thermodynamics to describe systems undergoing irreversible processes. It is particularly useful for describing macroscopic flow of system components, whether conserved (e.g., particle number) or non-conserved (e.g., spin). We give a general introduction to this toolset and calculate the entropy production due to bulk and interfacial flow. We compare the entropy production and heating rate of bulk and interfacial transport, as well as interfacial charge and spin transport. We then demonstrate the power and applicability of this toolset by applying it to three systems. We first consider metal oxide growth, and discuss inconsistency in previous theory by Mott. We show, however, that Mott's solution is the lowest order of a consistent asymptotic solution, with the ion and electron concentrations and fluxes going as power series in t^-k/2, where k = 1, 2, .... We find that this gives corrections to the "parabolic growth law" that has oxide thickness going as t^1/2; the lowest order correction is logarithmic in t. We then consider the effect on spin of electric currents crossing an interface between a ferromagnet (FM) and non-magnetic material (NM). Previous theories for electrical potential and spin accumulation neglect chemical or magnetic contributions to the energy. We apply irreversible thermodynamics to show that both contributions are pivotal in predicting the spin accumulation, particularly in the NM. We also show that charge screening, not considered in previous theories, causes spin accumulation in the FM, which may be important in ferromagnetic semiconductors. Finally, we apply irreversible thermodynamics to thermal equilibration in a thin-film FM on a substrate. Recent experiments suggest that applying a thermal gradient across the length of the system causes a spin current along the thickness; this spin current is present much farther from the heat sources than expected. We find that, although the interaction between the separate thermal equilibration processes increases the largest equilibration length, thermal equilibration does not predict a length as large as the experimentally measured length; it does predict, however, a thermal gradient along the thickness that has the shape of the measured spin current.

This thesis concerns design and construction of an ultra high vacuum chamber to fabricate and characterize spintronic devices.  The long term intention is to fabricate spin valve structures with V[TCNE]2 (hybrid organic inorganic semiconductor room temperature magnet) sandwiched between two ferromagnetic electrodes, which requires better than 10-8mbar of vacuum. Due to an uncured leak in the chamber, the current vacuum is limited to 4*10-7mbar. The V[TCNE]2 thin film prepared in this vacuum, oxidized completely  by  the presence of oxygen during the film growth. Organic magnetoresistance (OMAR) devices which are simple organic diode structures were fabricated and characterized, as they are compatible with high vacuum conditions. A magnetoresistance measurement set up was arranged and the possible problems in fabrication and characterization are analyzed.   To fabricate OMAR devices-ITO/P3HT/Al, RR-P3HT (regio regular poly (3-hexylthiophene)) an effective hole transport polymer with higher hole mobilities was used as an active layer and Al (aluminum) as a cathode. A thermal evaporation setup was added to the vacuum chamber to evaporate Al electrodes. The devices were kept in argon and vacuum environments, while characterizing in dark to suppress the exitons generated by photo illumination. The Organic magnetoconductance of about 1% is observed for the less concentration P3HT (3mg/1ml), and significantly improved to -23% for the high concentration P3HT (10mg/ml) solution. The results support that the negative magnetoconductance is due to the formation of bipolaron under the influence of an external magnetic field.   Finally, suggestions to improve the performance of the vacuum chamber to fabricate and characterize the spintronic devices and OMAR devices are presented.

This thesis presents the design and implementation of a high-speed read-access STT MRAM. The proposed design includes a 2T1MTJ cell topology, along with two different read schemes: current-based and voltage-based. Compared to the conventional read scheme with 1T1MTJ cells, the proposed design is capable of reducing the loading on the read circuit to minimize the read access time. A complete STT MRAM test chip including the proposed and the conventional schemes was fabricated in 90nm CMOS technology. The 16kb test chip's measurement results confirm a read access time of 6ns and a write access time of 10ns. The read time is 25% faster than other works of similar array size published thus far, while the write time is able to match the fastest result.

This thesis presents the design and implementation of a high-speed read-access STT MRAM. The proposed design includes a 2T1MTJ cell topology, along with two different read schemes: current-based and voltage-based. Compared to the conventional read scheme with 1T1MTJ cells, the proposed design is capable of reducing the loading on the read circuit to minimize the read access time. A complete STT MRAM test chip including the proposed and the conventional schemes was fabricated in 90nm CMOS technology. The 16kb test chip's measurement results confirm a read access time of 6ns and a write access time of 10ns. The read time is 25% faster than other works of similar array size published thus far, while the write time is able to match the fastest result.

The dilute magnetic semiconductor (Ga,Mn)As , which is the most interesting and promising material for spintronics applications, has been theoretically studied by using Density Functional Theory. First of all, calculations on GaAs were done and it was found that GaAs is a semiconductor with a direct band gap. The calculated value of the band gap is ~ 0.5eV. Secondly, the material iron was considered and it was confirmed that iron is a ferromagnetic metal with 2.2µB net magnetic moment. Then a magnetic impurity of manganese, Mn was introduced in the nonmagnetic GaAs and it became ferromagnetic with a net magnetic moment of 4µB. The origin of the ferromagnetic behaviour is discussed and also the Curie temperature TC of the material. It appeared that (Ga,Mn)As is a suitable material for DMS but TC has to be increased before (Ga,Mn)As could be used for spintronics applications and on that account some methods of increasing TC are considered at the end. / Den magnetiska halvledaren (Ga,Mn)As som är det mest intressanta och lovande materialet för spinelektroniska tillämpningar har teoretiskt undersökts med hjälp av Täthetsfunktionalteorin. Först gjordes beräkningar på GaAs och det visade sig att GaAs är en halvledare med direkt bandgap. Det beräknade värdet på bandgapet är ca 0.5eV. Sedan var det järn som undersöktes och det blev bekräftat att järn är en ferromagnetisk metall med netto magnetisk moment lika med 2.2μB. Då magnetiska störningar i form av mangan atomer, Mn, infördes i det omagnetiska GaAs blev halvledaren ferromagnetisk med netto magnetisk moment lika med 4μB. Orsakerna till den ferromagnetiska ordningen diskuteras och även Curie temperaturen TC för materialet. Det visade sig att (Ga,Mn)As är ett lämpligt material för tillverkning av magnetiska halvledare men TC måste ökas innan (Ga,Mn)As skulle kunna användas i spinntroniska tillämpningar och av det skälet anges i slutet vissa metoder för att öka TC.

The design, fabrication, and characterizations of the spin-polarized AlxGa1-xN/GaN HEMT structure have been achieved for spintronic application. By band calculation within linear combination of atomic orbitals and two-band k·p methods, the theoretical spin-splitting energy and minimum-spin-splitting surface of wurtzite structure have been investigated as a function of the Fermi wavevector with various strain-relaxations. Base on these results, the design of host material of the nonballistic spin-FET has also been proposed. By optimizing the Al composition and n2DEG, the Fermi surface of two-dimensional electron gas is supposed to reach the minimum-spin-splitting surface to produce resonant spin-lifetime. Because the high quality AlxGa1-xN/GaN HEMT structure is necessary for realizing the spin-FET, the influence of the growth conditions on the polarity and structure quality of the GaN epilayer have been studied on the sample grown by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy. Ga-polar AlGaN/GaN heterostructures on c-Al2O3 has been realized by growing over the Al-rich AlN nucleation layer. And the reduction of interface roughness and threading dislocation scatterings of the electrons in two-dimensional electron gas has also been achieved by growing GaN epilayer under slightly Ga-rich condition. Furthermore, the effect of different types of threading dislocation on the electron mobility of the AlxGa1-xN/GaN HEMT structure has been investigated as well. At low temperature, the electron mobility of two-dimensional electron gas in AlGaN/GaN heterostructures is majorly scattered by the edge type dislocation rather than the screw type. The designs of proposed host material for spin-FETs have been realized through growing high quality spin-polarized AlxGa1-xN/GaN HEMT structures with various Al composition (x= 0.191 ¡V 0.397) grown on c-Al2O3 by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy. The high mobility (10682 cm2/Vs at 0.4 K), flat interface (surface roughness < 0.5 nm), and high quality HEMT provide a good environment to study the spin-splitting energy. To investigate the spin-splitting energy as functions of the Fermi wavevector, the Shubnikov-de Haas measurements were performed. A large spin-splitting energy (10.76 meV) has been fabricated in Al0.390Ga0.61N/GaN HEMT structure with kf = 8.14 ¡Ñ 108 m-1 for the host material of the Datta-Das spin-FET. And for the first time, the minimum-spin-splitting surface has been experimentally generated in Al0.390Ga0.61N/GaN HEMT structure with kf = 8.33 ¡Ñ 108 m-1 for the host material of the nonballistic spin-FET.

The work presented in this thesis shows how tunneling spectroscopy techniques can be applied to metallic nanoparticles to obtain useful information about fundamental physical processes in nanoscopic length scales. At low temperatures, the discrete character of the energy spectrum of these particles, allows the study of spin-polarized current via resolved "electron-in-a-box" energy levels. In samples consisting of two ferromagnetic electrodes tunnel coupled to single aluminum nanoparticles, spin accumulation mechanisms are responsible for the observed spin-polarized current. The observed effect of an applied perpendicular magnetic field, relative to the magnetization orientation of the electrodes, indicates the suppression of spin precession in such small particles. More generally, in the presence of an external non-collinear magnetic field, it is the local field "felt" by the particle that determines the character of the tunnel current. This effect is also observed in the case where only one of the electrodes is ferromagnetic. In contrast to the non-magnetic case, ferromagnetic nanoparticles exhibit a much more complex energy spectrum, which cannot be accounted for, using the simple free-electron picture. It will be shown that interactions between quasi-particle excitations due to sequential electron tunneling and spin excitations in the particle are likely to play an important role in the observed temperature/voltage dependence of magnetic hysteresis loops.

Recognising that the characterisation of actual interfaces in magnetic multilayer systems will provide valuable insight for the integration of spintronics in practical devices, a study of interface effects in various structures is presented. Magnetometry measurements are performed for a range of Fe thicknesses (0.4 - 23 nm) grown by molecular beam epitaxy on GaAs and InAs substrates in order to determine the factors governing the evolution of the magnetic moment of epitaxial Fe grown on a zinc-blende semiconductor. A greater reduction of the Fe magnetic moment is observed for films grown on InAs as compared to GaAs, as the Fe films reach a bulk-like moment (within 10% deviation) at a thickness of ~5.2 nm and ~2.2 nm, respectively. From this direct comparative study it is concluded that interface and interdiffusion effects are the dominant mechanisms influencing the value of the magnetic moment for ultra-thin Fe films on GaAs and InAs. Spin injection at this interface is performed, by detecting optical polarisation in the oblique Hanle geometry from a Fe/AlGaAs/GaAs spin-light emitting diode structure. The electrical and magnetic properties of the system are presented, and a ~1% injection polarisation at room temperature, rising to ~4% at 77 K is reported. A study of the deposition and growth of MgO thin (3 - 39 nm) films in conjunction with magnetic layers is also performed. Crystallinity of MgO grown on GaAs is obtained, and epitaxial growth of Fe and Co on MgO is demonstrated. Polarised neutron reflectivity results again indicate a slight decrease in Fe and Co magnetic moments due to interfacial oxide layers. MgO is also incorporated in a pseudo-spin-valve structure which demonstrates epitaxy-induced magneto-crystalline anisotropy. It is concluded that the interface quality is a critical parameter for spintronic devices. Atomic-scale defects and intermixing in real samples mean that current theoretical estimates of ~100% injection efficiency in perfect systems remain unattainable. However by increasing atomic-level structural control of interfaces, a substantial increase in efficiency might be achieved, similarly to the recent breakthrough in tunnelling magneto-resistance ratios which have reached 1000%.