Orbital effects on tunneling anisotropic magnetoresistance in Fe/GaAs/Au junctions

Abstract

We report experiments on epitaxially grown Fe/GaAs/Au tunnel junctions demonstrating that the magnitude of the tunneling anisotropic magnetoresistance (TAMR) effect can be controlled by magnetic field strength. Theoretical modeling shows that the interplay of the orbital effects of a magnetic field and the Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling in the GaAs barrier leads to an independent contribution to the TAMR effect with uniaxial symmetry, whereas the Bychkov-Rashba spin-orbit coupling does not play a role. The effect is intrinsic to barriers with bulk inversion asymmetry. © 2009 The American Physical Society.