| Author(s): |
William F. Egelhoff Jr.; Mark D. Stiles; David P. Pappas; S Alvarado; J Gregg; J Bland; R A. Buhrman; Daniel T. Pierce; J Byers; M Johnson; B Jonker; |
| Title: |
Spin Polarization of Injected Electrons |
| Published: |
May 17, 2002 |
| Abstract: |
A recent paper in Science made the claim of 92% polarization for the injection spin polarized electrons from a Ni scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) tip into GaAs(110). Actually they state their result as 92% efficiency for the injection of 100% importance for the emerging field of Spintronics. If true, it would suggest that the field is rapidly closing in on the key goal of 100% efficiency. However, we wish to inform the Science readership that the claim is by no means substantiated by a close examination of the work, and in fact serious errors in the analysis imply that the actual polarization was much less than 92%. Since the tip is not 100% spin polarized, it makes no sense to break this polarization into a tip polarization times an efficiency. |
| Citation: |
Science |
| Volume: |
296 |
| Issue: |
No. 5571 |
| Pages: |
pp. 1195 - 1195 |
| Keywords: |
gallium arsnide tunneling nickel;spin polarization |
| Research Areas: |
Nanomagnetics |
| PDF version: |
 Click here to retrieve PDF version of paper (9KB) |
