Vertical transport and tunnelling in rare-earth nitride heterostructures.

We report an investigation of the ferromagnetic semiconductor rare earth nitrides (RENs) for their potential for cryogenic-temperature electronics and spintronics applications. We have identified ohmic contacts suitable for the device structures that demand electron transport through interface layers, and grown REN/insulator/REN heterostructures that display tunnelling characteristics, an enormous 400% tunneling magnetoresistance and a hysteresis promising their exploitation in non-volatile magnetic random access memory.

Breaking Molecular Nitrogen under Mild Conditions with an Atomically Clean Lanthanide Surface.

A route to break molecular nitrogen (N) under mild conditions is demonstrated by N gas cracking on, and incorporation into, lanthanide films. Successful growth of lanthanide nitride thin films, made by evaporation of lanthanides in a partial N atmosphere at room temperature and pressure as low as 10 Torr, is confirmed using X-ray diffraction. In situ conductance measurements of pure lanthanide thin films exposed to N gas show an immediate surface reaction and a slower bulk reaction.