Physica E 13 (2002) 547 – 551 www.elsevier.com/locate/physe Eective spin diusion across hugely lattice mismatched heterointerfaces M. Ghali a ; * , J. Kossut a , E. Janik a , K. Regi  nski b , L. Klopotowski c , P. Dluewski a , M. Potemski d , F. Teran d a Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Al. Lotnik ow 32=46, 02-668 Warsaw, Poland b Institute of Electron Technology, Al. Lotnik ow 32=46, 02-668 Warsaw, Poland c Institute of Experimental Physics, Warsaw University, ul. Hoa 69, 00-681 Warsaw, Poland d Grenoble High Magnetic Field Laboratory, 38042 Grenoble Cedex 9, France Abstract Injection of spin polarized carriers from a diluted magnetic semiconductor (ZnMnTe) to non-magnetic semiconductor (GaInAs quantum well) has been demonstrated by observing 22% degree of circular polarization in magneto photolumi- nescence measurements. The degree of the circular polarization reecting the degree of carriers spin alignment, shows that spin polarized carriers are able to diuse under optical excitation from Zn0:97Mn0:03Te spin aligner to Ga0:8In0:2As QW via a 200  A of GaAs spacer conserving their polarization despite a high (∼10 10 cm -2 ) density of dislocations present at the interface. ? 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PACS: 78.55.Et; 78.55.-m; 73.90.+f Keywords: Spin injection; Dislocations; Semimagnetic semiconductors 1. Introduction Making use of spin coherence in semiconductors is one of the most important research issues in the rel- atively new eld of spintronics. This emerging eld is based on controlling the electron (hole) spin rather than its charge and it promises to integrate memo- ries and logic functions in a single device. The key issue in utilizing the potential of such applications is to inject spin polarized carriers into spatial regions in solid state systems [1]. Large eorts have been dedi- cated in this direction in the last few years. Recently, spintronics has made important steps forward when ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.=fax: +48-22-843-1331. E-mail address: mohsen@ifpan.edu.pl (M. Ghali). Fiederling et al. [2], as well as Ohno et al. [3] have drawn polarized spins from either diluted or ferro- magnetic semiconductors, respectively. In both cases fairly lattice-matched materials have been used. In the mean time, Jonker et al. [4] achieved 50% eciency of electrical spin injection using a structure with ∼0:5% lattice mismatch between the detector and injector layers. The issue of the role of lattice match- ing is of useful importance since an injection can be achieved from a ferromagnetic metal [5] in the tun- neling conguration [6] where strain in the interfacial regions is inescapable. In this work we present an approach utilizing a large lattice mismatched materials attempting to eval- uate the role of the lattice matching in the eective- ness of the spin transport across dierent materials and 1386-9477/02/$ - see front matter ? 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII:S1386-9477(02)00164-9