The magnetic ordering in high magnetoresistance Mn-doped ZnO thin films
Type
ArticleKAUST Department
Material Science and Engineering ProgramPhysical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division
Semiconductor and Material Spectroscopy (SMS) Laboratory
Date
2016-03-24Online Publication Date
2016-03-24Print Publication Date
2016-03Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/606855
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
We studied the nature of magnetic ordering in Mn-doped ZnO thin films that exhibited ferromagnetism at 300 K and superparamagnetism at 5 K. We directly inter-related the magnetisation and magnetoresistance by invoking the polaronpercolation theory and variable range of hopping conduction below the metal-to-insulator transition. By obtaining a qualitative agreement between these two models, we attribute the ferromagnetism to the s-d exchange-induced spin splitting that was indicated by large positive magnetoresistance (∼40 %). Low temperature superparamagnetism was attributed to the localization of carriers and non-interacting polaron clusters. This analysis can assist in understanding the presence or absence of ferromagnetism in doped/un-doped ZnO.Citation
The magnetic ordering in high magnetoresistance Mn-doped ZnO thin films 2016, 6 (3):035019 AIP AdvancesSponsors
The authors wish to thank KAUST for the financial support. Synchrotron studies were carried out at the SSRL, a Directorate of SLAC and an Office of Science User Facility operated for the US DOE Office of Science by Stanford University. J.S.L. acknowledges partial funding from the Global Research Laboratory program of the Korean Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology (MEST). The authors also thank Dr. Paul R Edwards and Prof. Robert W Martin for using EPMA facilities at University of Strathclyde.Publisher
AIP PublishingJournal
AIP Advancesae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1063/1.4944954