SBIR Phase I: High Throughput Screening of High Efficiency Spin Injection Materials in the Transparent Room Temperature Ferromagnetic Doped Indium Oxides

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will address the high efficiency spin injection materials. One of the major technical barriers to realize the practical implementation of spin-controlled devices is the development of spin injection contact materials that will effectively inject spin polarized electrons into semiconductors. One approach is the development of room temperature, soft ferromagnetic semiconductors. Based on Intematix's proprietary combinatorial technology of materials research, transition metal doped In2O3, well-known wide bandgap semiconductor, was found to have impurity-free, room temperature ferromagnetism with high solubility of dopants. With many emerging new diluted magnetic semiconductor materials troubled by magnetic impurities, the impurity-free magnetism in doped In2O3 raises a significant possibility of spin polarization in this wide bandgap semiconductor. The goal is to realize a thin film device to confirm its spin injection efficiency, thus paving the way for a wide range of practical device applications in Phase II. The discovery and confirmation of efficient spin injection materials in thin film device setting is the key to the spintronics semiconductor industry, and its potential benefits to the U.S. economy and environment is enormous. It will set off the industry of spin-enabled semiconductor devices from sensors to spin-current amplifying transistors. Once realized, the spintronic devices will quadruple the capacity and speed of conventional semiconductor devices. This will eventually lead to create quantum computers that encode information in four different spin states -- up, down or two mixtures of both -- instead of representing data in binary digits, as is the case at present. Eventually it will create the spintronics industry whose market is projected to be bigger than the current semiconductor industry.