Ballistic Transport Properties of Spin Field-Effect Transistors Built on Silicon and InAs Fins

Abstract

We investigate the transport properties of ballistic spin field-effect transistors (SpinFET). We show that temperature exerts a significant influence on the device characteristics. For the InAsbased SpinFET an ambient temperature higher than T=150K leads to the absence of the ability to modulate the value of the tunneling magnetoresistance through changing the bandgap mismatch between the channel and the contacts. The length of the semiconductor channel impacts significantly the device characteristics. A shorter channel is preferred for potential operations at room temperature. For the silicon-based SpinFET the spin-orbit interaction has to be taken in the Dresselhaus form. We demonstrate that silicon fins with [100] orientation exhibit a stronger dependence on the value of the spin-orbit interaction and are thus preferable for practical realization of SpinFETs.