Comparison of performance of n- and p-type spin transistors with conventional transistors

A spintronic device that has stimulated much research interest is the Datta-Das spin transistor. The mechanism behind it called the Rashba effect is that an applied voltage gives rise to a spin splitting. We propose ways to optimize this effect. The relevant spin splitting in k-space is predicted to increase with electric field at a rate that is more than two orders of magnitude larger for holes than for electrons. Furthermore, the almost negligible lattice-mismatch between GaAs and AlGaAs can be used to further enhance the advantage of hole-based spin transistors. Compared to present transistors we conclude that electron-based spin transistors will have problems to become competitive but hole-based ones are much more promising.