Towards a Room Temperature Organic Spin Valve: Structural, Magnetic and Transport Properties of Fe 3 O 4 /PTCTE/Co Devices

This paper describes first steps in preparation of an organic spin valve based on a perylene derivative (PTCTE) sandwiched between magnetite (Fe 3 O 4 ) and cobalt (Co) ferromagnetic electrodes. MgO(001)/Fe 3 O 4 /PTCTE (450 nm)/Co devices were prepared with different Co soft deposition methods: off-axis dc-sputtering or Joule evaporation. Vibrating Sample Magnetometer (VSM) studies of the Fe 3 O 4 /PTCTE/Co stacks evidence spin valve behavior with magnetically uncoupled electrodes. These results are correlated with a morphological study by atomic force microscopy (AFM) of each layer and tunneling AFM (TUNA) for the investigation of inhomogeneity of current distribution in the devices. Finally, macroscopic I-V characteristics performed on the same devices will be presented and compared with TUNA results.