Recovery of half-metallicity of oxide surfaces and its application to spin injection

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Half-metallic ferromagnets are important materials in the field of spintronics, but the spin polarization at their surfaces or interfaces is usually much lower than 100%, causing the transport properties of the devices much lower than expected from the bulk spin polarization. We have previously reported that the surface spin polarization of Fe3O4(100) can be drastically improved by hydrogen termination. In this study, we analyzed this phenomena for an Fe3O4(111) surface and tried to utilize it for inducing high spin polarization to adsorbed molecules. We clarified that the spin polarization at the (111) surface is positive unexpectedly and is not improved by H termination. This would originate from the fact that the tetrahedrally-cordinated Fe terminates the (111) surface.