Electrical and thermal spin accumulation in germanium

Abstract

In this letter, we first show electrical spin injection in the germanium conduction band at room temperature and modulate the spin signal by applying a gate voltage to the channel. The corresponding signal modulation agrees well with the predictions of spin diffusion models. Then, by setting a temperature gradient between germanium and the ferromagnet, we create a thermal spin accumulation in germanium without any charge current. We show that temperature gradients yield larger spin accumulations than electrical spin injection but, due to competing microscopic effects, the thermal spin accumulation remains surprisingly unchanged under the application of a gate voltage. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.