Growth of MnGe nanostructures for spintronics applications

Mainstream CMOS technology in today's electronics continues to scale down in the feature size. However, power dissipation per unit area and variability are among two major issues and challenges for the continuing scaling. Spintronics, as an emerging technology that exploits the intrinsic spin of the carriers, could potentially offer power savings, low variability and improved scalability. Using nanoscale materials makes possible heterogeneous integration of dissimilar materials by accommodation of strain and minimizing defects. In this paper, we present work on Mn_xGe_1-x nanostructures. We discuss our nanoscale deposition and nano-epi approach in preparing single-crystalline dilute magnetic Mn_0.05Ge_0.95 QDs. By the use of MOS capacitor with the Mn_0.05Ge_0.95 QDs as the channel material and by controlling the electrical field at the gate, we demonstrate the ferromagnetism of the QDs by modulating the hole concentration in the channel. A theoretical understanding of high-Curie temperature nature of Mn_0.05Ge_0.95 is also provided via DOS simulations.