ABSTRACT
For su«ciently thin barriers, typically a few nanometers insulating layer, carriers have a certain ¢nite probability to be detected on the other side of the potential barrier due to the coupling between the evanescent wave functions on each side of the barrier. With the condition that the density of states (DOS) of the electrodes is spin polarized in the case of ferromagnets, and in a simple picture of a tunneling current proportional to the DOS within each spin channel, the transmission probability is spin dependent, that is, depends on the relative orientation of the two magnetizations. žis is the so-called TMR e¥ect. Additionally, for tunneling of holes in the valence band of semiconductors, one can expect an in¦uence of the large spin-orbit coupling on the transmission probability through the barrier as well as a possible de¦ection of the characteristic carrier wavevector leading to the so-called TAMR e¥ects.
