Half-metallic behavior of a ferromagnetic metal monolayer in a semiconducting matrix

¹  Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) - P. de Manuel Lardizabal 4, 20018, San Sebastián, Basque Country, Spain, EU
²  CRS SMC, CNR-INFM and Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Roma “La Sapienza” - Piazzale Aldo Moro, 2, 00185 Roma, Italy, EU
³  RRC Kurchatov Institute - Kurchatov Sqr. 1, 123182 Moscow, Russia
⁴  Departamento de Física de Materiales, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, UPV/EHU and Centro Mixto CSIC-UPV/EHU - Apdo. 1072, 20080 San Sebastián, Basque Country, Spain, EU

Corresponding author: sergio.caprara@roma1.infn.it

Received: 29 September 2008
Accepted: 19 December 2008

Abstract

We propose a model to describe the formation of a spin-polarized half-metallic state in the proximity of a ferromagnetic metal monolayer embedded into a semiconducting host. The main physical ingredients of our model are the Coulomb interaction between two electrons at the same metallic site, the charge redistribution around the monolayer and the hybridization between the electron states of the metal and of its host. We discuss the phase diagram of the model and the relevance of our results in connection with experimental and numerical results on digital magnetic heterostructures.