Electric-field-controlled ferromagnetism in high-Curie-temperature Mn _0.05Ge_0.95 quantumdots

Electric-field manipulation of ferromagnetism has the potential for developing a new generation of electric devices to resolve the power consumption and variability issues in todays microelectronics industry. Among various dilute magnetic semiconductors (DMSs), group IV elements such as Si and Ge are the ideal material candidates because of their excellent compatibility with the conventional complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) technology. Here we report, for the first time, the successful synthesis of self-assembled dilute magnetic Mn_0.05Ge_0.95 quantum dots with ferromagnetic order above room temperature, and the demonstration of electric-field control of ferromagnetism in MOS ferromagnetic capacitors up to 100K. We found that by applying electric fields to a MOS gate structure, the ferromagnetism of the channel layer can be effectively modulated through the change of hole concentration inside the quantum dots. Our results are fundamentally important in the understanding and to the realization of high-efficiency Ge-based spin field-effect transistors.