Communications of the ACM
Study Suggests Second Life For Possible Spintronic Materials
Part of a 3D rendering of stable manganese gallium nitride's surface structure.
Credit: A.R. Smith
Ten years ago, scientists were convinced that a combination of manganese and gallium nitride could be a key material to create spintronics. However, the researchers grew discouraged when experiments indicated that the two materials were incompatible. Now, Ohio University researchers have made two important changes to combine the two materials.
First, they used the nitrogen polarity of gallium nitride to attach to the manganese. Second, they heated the sample. When the scientists raised the temperature about 100 degrees Celsius, the atoms adhered to the nitrogen layer underneath, creating a manganese-nitrogen bond, according to Ohio University professor Arthur Smith.
Now that the researchers have shown that they can create a stable structure with these materials, they will investigate whether it has the magnetic properties at room temperature necessary to function as a spintronic material.
Smith says theoretical scientists accurately predicted that a triplet structure of three manganese atoms would cohere into a metastable structure at low temperatures. However, at higher temperatures, the manganese atoms decohere apart and bond with nitrogen.
The Atomic Center's Valeria Ferrari notes her group executed quantum mechanical simulations to test which model structures have the lowest energy, which suggested both the triplet structure as well as the manganese-nitrogen bonded structure.
From Ohio University
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