IV-VI ferromagnetic semiconductors recent studies

W Dobrowolski,I Kuryliszyn-Kudelska,A Grzęda,M Wójcik,V.K Dugaev,E.I Slynko,B Brodowska,M Arciszewska,V Domukhovski

doi:10.2298/sos0602109d

Abstract

In some IV-VI semimagnetic semiconductors, the RKKY interaction can dominate over the standard d-d superexchange and become the driving mechanism for ion-ion coupling. In effect, for low hole concentrations the Mn ion system is in a paramagnetic phase, whereas for higher ones it reveals typical ferromagnetic behavior. In this paper, recent work on IV-VI ferromagnetic (SnMnTe, PbSnMnTe and GeMnTe) systems will be presented. In particular, the influence of the presence of two types of magnetic ions (transition metal: Mn and rare earth metal: Eu or Er) incorporated into a semiconductor matrix on magnetic properties of resultant semimagnetic semiconductor will be described.

Highlights

Semiconductors exhibiting ferromagnetism have recently been intensively investigated on account of the emerging field of spintronics
In some IV–VI semimagnetic semiconductors, the RKKY interaction can dominate over the standard d–d superexchange and become the driving mechanism for ion–ion coupling
It is clear that the obtained results of calculations performed within a simple two band model can explain the tendency of the Curie temperature to decrease with the Eu content that is observed experimentally

Summary

Introduction

Semiconductors exhibiting ferromagnetism have recently been intensively investigated on account of the emerging field of spintronics. For low hole concentrations the Mn ion system is in a paramagnetic phase, whereas for higher ones it reveals typical ferromagnetic behavior. The results of recent studies [2, 3] of the magnetic and transport properties of IV–VI based ferromagnetic semimagnetic semiconductors, namely PbSnMn(Eu,Er)Te and GeMnEuTe, will be presented in this paper.

Results

Conclusion