ABSTRACT
GaN based materials have continued to be at the forefront of spintronics research due to the demonstration of room temperature ferromagnetism in these materials. A spintronic device would utilize the electron spin and spin transport to achieve additional functionality compared to traditional electronics’ sole use of the electron charge. III-nitride materials have been studied as the host matrix for magnetic impurity incorporation due to their beneficial material properties and their existing semiconductor technology base. The magnetic impurity Gd has been incorporated into III-nitride materials via mainly molecular beam epitaxy growth with more current studies involving incorporation via metal-organic chemical-vapor deposition growth or ion implantation. Spin transport electronics continues to be a topic of interest since the shrinkage of the current predominant semiconductor materials is leading to limited functionality at the atomic scale. Numerous models have been suggested to explain the ferromagnetic phenomena in diluted magnetic semiconductors materials.
