Transport characteristics of magnetite thin films grown onto GaAs substrates

Magnetite thin films with a preferred ~111! orientation have been deposited by reactive dc magnetron sputtering from a pure Fe target onto ~100! GaAs substrates at 400 °C. The films show a clear Verwey transition in both the magnetization and sheet resistance as functions of temperature. For films deposited onto semiconducting n-type GaAs substrates, we have obtained asymmetric current–voltage (I – V) characteristics with a Schottky diodelike behavior in forward bias. Activation energy plots of the I – V data as a function of temperature indicate a barrier height of 0.3–0.4 eV. This does not take into account the contribution from tunneling across the narrow depletion layer in these junctions, so should be considered a lower bound to the actual Schottky barrier height. Our work points to the potential integration of half-metallic magnetite with GaAs-based heterostructures for spin-electronic devices. © 2004 American Institute of Physics. @DOI: 10.1063/1.1652418#