Electrically controlled spin injection into a ferroelectric semiconductor

This study demonstrates that ferroelectric polarization can be used as a control parameter to tune the spin-polarization of injected carrier from a ferromagnetic metal into an electron-doped ferroelectric semiconductor. A SrRuO₃/n-BaTiO₃ ferromagnetic metal-ferroelectric semiconductor heterojunction is considered. First-principles calculations are performed using the plane-wave pseudopotential code within the local spin-density approximation. It is shown that at low electron doping, the spin polarization of conductance in this junction changes its sign by switching the ferroelectric polarization in n-BaTiO₃.