Electrical spin injection and detection of spin precession in room temperature bulk GaN lateral spin valves

Abstract

We report the measurement of diffusive electronic spin transport characteristics in an epitaxial wurtzite GaN lateral spin valve at room temperature. Hanle spin precession and non-local spin accumulation measurements have been performed with the spin valves fabricated with FeCo/MgO spin contacts. Electron spin relaxation length and spin-flip lifetime of 176 nm and 37 ps, respectively, are derived from analysis of results obtained from four-terminal Hanle spin precession measurements at 300 K. The role of dislocations and defects in bulk GaN has also been examined in the context of electronic spin relaxation dynamics.