The computational design of zinc-blende half-metals and their nanostructures

The influence of atomic disorder and heterointerfaces with III-V semiconductors on the electronic and magnetic properties of zinc-blende (ZB) CrAs is studied by ab initio calculations based on density-functional theory. Antisite Cr spins are coupled antiferromagnetically with the Cr spins at the ordinary sites, while the ferromagnetic coupling between the Cr spins at the ordinary sites is robust against defect formation. The degree of spin polarization is not reduced significantly by the impurity bands formed in the minority spin energy gap. In the ZB CrAs/GaAs junction, relatively high spin polarization is retained even at the interface in contrast to usual half-metal/semiconductor heterojunctions. Complete spin polarization is also preserved throughout ZB CrAs/GaAs multilayers and it is insensitive to the substitutional disorder between Cr and Ga sites.