NSF Award
2328828
Non-technical Description:<br/>Modern life has been transformed by electronics based on moving electrons through nanoscale semiconductor devices. Spintronics combine electronics with spin, an intrinsic property of elementary particles, making possible even smaller devices that operate at higher speeds and consume less energy. Spintronics could thus revolutionize electronics for data processing, communication, and storage. This project spans design and synthesis of novel materials to fabrication and characterization of advanced spintronic devices. The team will synthesize custom-designed semiconducting alloys to read data more efficiently in a spintronic logic circuit. A fundamental understanding of the structural-performance relationship for spintronic materials will be gained through characterization of structure and materials properties. Collectively, the outcome of this project is expected to be information on how to manufacture a highly efficient spintronic device. The team’s workforce development plan has a central theme of technology communication. The approach seeks to educate and develop faculty, students, and the future workforce to be leaders in the semiconductor industry. Undergraduate and graduate students from five institutions will be trained to better communicate and identify transferable skills to make themselves marketable to semiconductor industry employers. This training will serve as a blueprint for the launch of a micro-credential in technology communication with integrated Industry-Recognized Credentials, and this project will support 75 students to receive this credential. Outreach events will target both undergraduate and K-12 audiences to raise awareness of jobs in the semiconductor industry. These activities will be reinforced by workforce development activities and industry partnerships.<br/> <br/>Technical Description:<br/>Spin gapless semiconductors (SGS) are a new class of spintronic materials that have a finite bandgap in their electronic band structure for electrons with one spin and a zero bandgap for electrons with the other spin, which is advantageous for spintronic applications. Current SGS compounds often display atomic defects and disordering, crucial elements for the material's spin polarization and injection capabilities. In order to harness the unique advantage of SGS as efficient spin injectors, which is indispensable for spin logic devices such as the magneto-electric spin-orbit (MESO) logic, the team is using Mn2CoAl as a platform to develop a strategy that stabilizes the near-SGS behavior through understanding and manipulation of influences from composition, processing, and interfaces. This is a collaborative material-process-device co-design project. At the materials level, the team is determining the relationship between chemical composition, phases, atomic ordering, and resultant electric and magnetic transport properties. On the thin film synthesis level, the team is performing low-energetic, epitaxial-quality film growth with sputter beam epitaxy. Lessons learned from the fundamental materials research will be used to avoid deleterious defects via composition and processing control. At the device level, the team is nanopatterning thin SGS layers into local spin injection junctions for the spin-to-charge readout side of the MESO device. Overall, this research will not only develop a strategy to use SGS materials for spintronic devices but also deepen current understanding on how materials composition, processing, and interfaces collectively impact the performance of a spin injector.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
