Highly polarized emission in spin resolved photoelectron spectroscopy of α-Fe(001)/GaAs(001)

Highly spin-polarized sources of electrons, integrated into device design, remain of great interest to the spintronic and magneto-electronic device community. Here, the growth of Fe upon GaAs(001) has been studied with photoelectron spectroscopy (PES), including Spin Resolved PES. Despite evidence of atomic level disorder such as intermixing, an over-layer with the spectroscopic signature of α-Fe(001), with a bcc real space ordering, is obtained. The results will be discussed in light of the possibility of using such films as a spin-polarized source in device applications.