Anomalous Magnetic Field Dependence of Charge Carrier Density in Ferromagnetic Semiconductors

Abstract

This paper reports calculations of temperature and magnetic field dependent thermal and optical activation energies of a shallow donor state and the energy of the conduction band edge in a ferromagnetic semiconductor. The formation of the bound magnetic polaron (BMP), i.e., a magnetically polarized cluster associated with the donor electron, is taken into account. The solution of a set of coupled equations for the energy of a donor electron and for the local non-uniform magnetization around the donor center indicates that the activation energies have their maxima near the Curie temperature and decrease with the application of a magnetic field. This decrease leads to a strong magnetic field dependence of the charge carrier density nc explains well the giant negative magnetoresistance of EuSe observed experimentally at low temperatures.