Coherent Epitaxial Semiconductor-Ferromagnetic Insulator InAs/EuS Interfaces: Band Alignment and Magnetic Structure

Understand

Hybrid semiconductor-ferromagnetic insulator heterostructures are interesting due to their tunable electronic transport, self-sustained stray field and local proximitized magnetic exchange.

• In this work, we present lattice matched hybrid epitaxy of semiconductor - ferromagnetic insulator InAs/EuS heterostructures and analyze the atomic-scale structure as well as their electronic and magnetic characteristics.
• The Fermi level at the InAs/EuS interface is found to be close to the InAs conduction band and in the bandgap of EuS, thus preserving the semiconducting properties.
• Both neutron and X-ray reflectivity measurements show that the ferromagnetic component is mainly localized in the EuS thin film with a suppression of the Eu moment in the EuS layer nearest the InAs.