Electronic and magnetic properties of SnO2/CrO2 thin superlattices

• Published in: Nanoscale research letters Vol. 6; no. 1; p. 146
• Main Authors: Borges, Pablo D, Scolfaro, Luísa MR, Leite Alves, Horácio W, da Silva, Eronides F, Assali, Lucy VC
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer New York 15-02-2011; Springer Nature B.V; BioMed Central Ltd; Springer; SpringerOpen
• Subjects: Chemistry and Materials Science; International Conference on Superlattices; Materials Science; Molecular Medicine; Nano Review; Nanochemistry; Nanoscale Science and Technology; Nanostructures and Nanodevices (ICSNN 2010); Nanotechnology; Nanotechnology and Microengineering; SnO2; Magnetic Tunnel Junction; Chromium Atom; Minority Spin; Spin Injection
• ISSN: 1556-276X; 1931-7573; 1556-276X
• DOI: 10.1186/1556-276X-6-146

In this article, using first-principles electronic structure calculations within the spin density functional theory, alternated magnetic and non-magnetic layers of rutile-CrO
2
and rutile-SnO
2
respectively, in a (CrO
2
)
n
(SnO
2
)
n
superlattice (SL) configuration, with
n
being the number of monolayers which are considered equal to 1, 2, ..., 10 are studied. A half-metallic behavior is observed for the (CrO
2
)
n
(SnO
2
)
n
SLs for all values of
n
. The ground state is found to be FM with a magnetic moment of 2 μ
B
per chromium atom, and this result does not depend on the number of monolayers
n
. As the FM rutile-CrO
2
is unstable at ambient temperature, and known to be stabilized when on top of SnO
2
, the authors suggest that (CrO
2
)
n
(SnO
2
)
n
SLs may be applied to spintronic technologies since they provide efficient spin-polarized carriers.