Dr. Dirk Reuter

Lehrstuhl für Angewandte Festkörperphysik Fakultät für Physik und Astronomie der Ruhr-Universität Bochum Universitätsstr. 150 D-44780 Bochum

Tel: 0234/3225864 Fax: 0234/3214380 Email: dirk.reuter@rub.de

Prof. Dr. Andreas D. Wieck

Lehrstuhl für Angewandte Festkörperphysik Fakultät für Physik und Astronomie der Ruhr-Universität Bochum Universitätsstr. 150 D-44780 Bochum

Tel: 0234/3226726 Fax: 0234/3214380 Email: andreas.wieck@rub.de

Ferromagnetic GaN by focussed ion beam implanted rare earths

Spintronic is an intensively studied research field. Despite considerable progress in many subareas a lot of open questions remain. One hot topic is the search for material combinations that allow effective spin injection into a semiconductor or semiconductor heterostructure. A promising approach in this direction is the use of a ferromagnetic semiconductor as a spin injector. Recent research has shown that Gd doped GaN shows ferromagnetism at room temperature, which makes it a very interesting material for spintronic although the origin for the ferromagnetism on an atomic scale is still unknown. This project is dedicated to the investigation of the magnetic, optical and especially the electronic properties of implantation doped GaN and GaN-based heterostructures, respectively. Interesting lateral transport geometries, e. g, spin valve configurations, will be realized by focused ion beam implantation. The main focus is on the implantation of Gd, but other rare earth ions will be tested for their potential to create ferromagnetic nitrides.