Abstract
(111) NiO epitaxial layers embedded with crystallographically oriented Ni-clusters are grown on c-sapphire substrates using pulsed laser deposition technique. It has been found that certain growth and post-growth cooling conditions can be adjusted to vary the size, shape and density of these clusters. (111) Ni epitaxial layer can also be deposited on c-sapphire substrate by this technique when no oxygen is supplied into the chamber during growth. Structural and magnetic properties of the clusters are examined by a variety of techniques including atomic probe tomography and superconducting quantum interference device magnetometry. All cluster embedded films are found to exhibit ferromagnetic behaviour even at room temperature. Magnetic characteristics of these films depend strongly on the density, size and shape of the clusters. It has also been observed that electrical conductivity of these samples enhances by several orders of magnitude when the cluster density crosses the percolation threshold. While, strong ferromagnetic behaviour is maintained even in highly resistive samples. Therefore, the material system has a potential to serve as an efficient spin-injector, the missing link for the realization of semiconductor based spintronics.
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