Abstract
The possibility to attain ferromagnetic properties in transparent semiconductor oxides such as ZnO is very promising for future spintronic applications. We demonstrate in this review that ferromagnetism is not an intrinsic property of the ZnO crystalline lattice but is that of ZnO/ZnO grain boundaries. If a ZnO polycrystal contains enough grain boundaries, it can transform into the ferromagnetic state even without doping with “magnetic atoms” such as Mn, Co, Fe or Ni. However, such doping facilitates the appearance of ferromagnetism in ZnO. It increases the saturation magnetisation and decreases the critical amount of grain boundaries needed for FM. A drastic increase of the total solubility of dopants in ZnO with decreasing grain size has been also observed. It is explained by the multilayer grain boundary segregation.
Highlights
In 2000 the seminal work of Tomasz Dietl et al appeared [1]
We demonstrate in this review that ferromagnetism is not an intrinsic property of the zinc(II) oxide (ZnO) crystalline lattice but is that of ZnO/ZnO grain boundaries
Can we find the method that would be able to give us the direct and unambiguous evidence that ferromagnetic properties in ZnO derives from grain boundaries (GBs)?
Summary
In 2000 the seminal work of Tomasz Dietl et al appeared [1]. In this work it was predicted theoretically that many semiconductor oxides can become ferromagnetic (FM) if one dopes them with “magnetic” atoms such as iron, manganese and cobalt. First of all we analysed the whole corpus of published data on ferromagnetic behaviour of zinc oxide and developed our own method for the synthesis of pure and doped nanocrystalline ZnO films.
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