Palladium (III) Fluoride Bulk and PdF₃/Ga₂O₃/PdF₃ Magnetic Tunnel Junction: Multiple Spin-Gapless Semiconducting, Perfect Spin Filtering, and High Tunnel Magnetoresistance

Abstract

Spin-gapless semiconductors (SGSs) with Dirac-like band crossings may exhibit massless fermions and dissipationless transport properties. In this study, by applying the density functional theory, novel multiple linear-type spin-gapless semiconducting band structures were found in a synthesized R 3 − c -type bulk PdF3 compound, which has potential applications in ultra-fast and ultra-low power spintronic devices. The effects of spin-orbit coupling and on-site Coulomb interaction were determined for the bulk material in this study. To explore the potential applications in spintronic devices, we also performed first-principles combined with the non-equilibrium Green’s function for the PdF3/Ga2O3/PdF3 magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ). The results suggested that this MTJ exhibits perfect spin filtering and high tunnel magnetoresistance (~5.04 × 107).

Keywords

• spin-gapless semiconductors
• magnetic tunnel junction
• non-equilibrium Green’s function
• first-principle calculations