Room-temperature spin injection across a chiral perovskite/III-V interface.

Hautzinger, Matthew P; Pan, Xin; Hayden, Steven C; Ye, Jiselle Y; Jiang, Qi; Wilson, Mickey J; Phillips, Alan J; Dong, Yifan et al. · Nature · 2024

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Spin accumulation in semiconductor structures at room temperature and without magnetic fields is key to enable a broader range of optoelectronic functionality<sup>1</sup>. Current efforts are limited owing to inherent inefficiencies associated with spin injection across semiconductor interfaces<sup>2</sup>. Here we demonstrate spin injection across chiral halide perovskite/III-V interfaces achieving spin accumulation in a standard semiconductor III-V (Al<sub>x</sub>Ga<sub>1-x</sub>)<sub>0.5</sub>In<sub>0.5</sub>P multiple quantum well light-emitting diode. The spin accumulation in the multiple quantum well is detected through emission of circularly polarized light with a degree of polarization of up to 15 ± 4%. The chiral perovskite/III-V interface was characterized with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, cross-sectional scanning Kelvin probe force microscopy and cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy imaging, showing a clean semiconductor/semiconductor interface at which the Fermi level can equilibrate. These findings demonstrate that chiral perovskite semiconductors can transform well-developed semiconductor platforms into ones that can also control spin.