Researchers at NIST have made significant advances in organic spintronics by studying the effects of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on the interface between cobalt and the organic semiconductor Alq3. The SAMs, particularly mercaptohexadecanoic acid (MHA), were found to reduce oxidation of the cobalt surface and enhance the spin magnetic moment at the interface. These findings could lead to improved spin injection and detection in organic spintronic devices, which are important for developing efficient and low-energy electronic applications.
The research team, led by Christina Hacker and Hyuk-Jae Jang, used X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) measurements to examine how the SAMs altered the spin characteristics of the materials. The results suggest that by manipulating the interface between cobalt and Alq3, the spintronic properties of organic-based devices can be tuned. The next step is to focus on improving spin transport in organic materials to achieve long-distance spin transport in these devices.
Keywords: spintronics, spin injection, spin transport, spin detection, spin polarization
