On the origin of decay of spin current with temperature in organic spintronic devices

This article addresses the most challenging question facing the organic spintronics community today – what causes the universal loss of Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR) signal in organic spin valve devices made with different spin-polarized electrodes and organic semiconductor spacers? Careful analysis of our own and other experimental results available in literature indicate that transition of transport from polaron tunneling limit (suggested by the variable range hopping model) to thermally activated hopping limit (in the temperature range of 40–58 K) marks the most significant decrease of spin relaxation in organic semiconductors. With increasing occupancy of the available hopping sites by the thermally activated carriers, chances of spin flip inside the organic semiconductors increases significantly causing fast spin relaxation in the spin-valves.