Proposal for Reconfigurable Magnetic Tunnel Diode and Transistor

We propose a reconfigurable magnetic tunnel diode and transistor using spin gapless semiconductors (SGSs) and half metallic magnets (HMMs) [1]. The two-terminal tunnel diode is comprised of a SGS electrode and a HMM electrode separated by a thin insulating (I) tunnel barrier. The tunnel diode allows electrical current to pass either in one direction or in other direction depending of the relative orientation of the magnetization direction of the electrodes. The three-terminal magnetic tunnel transistor has HMM-I-SGS-I-HMM (emitter-base-collector) structure and can be switched on and off by application of a voltage to the base electrode and conducts current in both directions. Both devices can be configured by the spin transfer torque switching mechanism. We demonstrate the reconfigurable rectification characteristics of the proposed diode based on two-dimensional transition-metal dichalcogenides by employing the nonequilibrium Green's function method combined with density functional theory.
[1] Ersoy Sasioglu and Stefan Blügel, (2017), PCT Patent No. WO 2017076763(A1).