Coherent transport of electron spin in a ferromagnetically contacted carbon nanotube

Kazuhito Tsukagoshi, Bruce W. Alphenaar () and Hiroki Ago
Additional contact information
Kazuhito Tsukagoshi: The Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN)
Bruce W. Alphenaar: Hitachi Cambridge Laboratory
Hiroki Ago: Cavendish Laboratory

Nature, 1999, vol. 401, issue 6753, 572-574

Abstract: Abstract Conventional electronic devices generally utilize only the charge of conduction electrons; however, interest is growing in ‘spin-electronic’ devices1, whose operation depends additionally on the electronic spin. Spin-polarized electrons (which occur naturally in ferromagnetic materials) can be injected from a ferromagnet into non-ferromagnetic materials2,3,4, or through oxide tunnel barriers3,5,6,7,8,9,10. The electron-scattering rate at any subsequent ferromagnetic/non-ferromagnetic interface depends on the spin polarity, a property that is exploited in spin-electronic devices. The unusual conducting properties11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18 of carbon nanotubes offer intriguing possibilities for such devices; their elastic- and phase-scattering lengths are extremely long16,17, and carbon nanotubes can behave as one-dimensional conductors18. Here we report the injection of spin-polarized electrons from ferromagnetic contacts into multi-walled carbon nanotubes, finding direct evidence for coherent transport of electron spins. We observe a hysteretic magnetoresistance in several nanotubes with a maximum resistance change of 9%, from which we estimate the spin-flip scattering length to be at least 130 nm—an encouraging result for the development of practical nanotube spin-electronic devices.

Date: 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/44108 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:401:y:1999:i:6753:d:10.1038_44108

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/44108

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().