Electrical spin injection from an organic-based ferrimagnet in a hybrid organic-inorganic heterostructure

We report the successful extraction of spin-polarized current from the organic-based room temperature ferrimagnetic semiconductor V[TCNE](x) (x∼2, TCNE: tetracyanoethylene; T(C)∼400 K, E(G)∼0.5 eV, σ(300 K)∼10(-2) S/cm) and its subsequent injection into a GaAs/AlGaAs light-emitting diode. The spin current tracks the magnetization of V[TCNE](x∼2), is weakly temperature dependent, and exhibits heavy-hole-light-hole asymmetry. This result has implications for room temperature spintronics and the use of inorganic materials to probe spin physics in organic and molecular systems.