Robustness of n-GaAs carrier spin properties to 5 MeV protonirradiation

Modern electronic devices utilize charge to transmit and store information. This leaves the informationsusceptible to external influences, such as radiation, that can introduce short timescalechargefluctuations and, long term, degrade electronic properties. Encoding information as spinpolarizationsoffers an attractive alternative to electronic logic that should be robust to randomlypolarized transient radiation effects. As a preliminary step towards radiation-resistantspintronicdevices, we measure the spin properties of n-GaAs as a function of radiationfluence using time-resolved Kerr rotation and photoluminescence spectroscopy. Our results show a modestto negligible change in the long-term electron spin properties up to a fluence of1 × 1014 (5 MeV protons)/cm2, even as the luminescence decreasesby two orders of magnitude.