We report the existence of magnetic order at room temperature in Li-doped ZnO microwires after low energy H+ implantation. The microwires with diameters between 0.3 and 10 μm were prepared by a carbothermal process. We combine spectroscopy techniques to elucidate the influence of the electronic structure and local environment of Zn, O, and Li and their vacancies on the magnetic response. Ferromagnetism at room temperature is obtained only after implanting H+ in Li-doped ZnO. The overall results indicate that low-energy proton implantation is an effective method to produce the necessary amount of stable Zn vacancies near the Li ions to trigger the magnetic order.

Photoconductance spectroscopy has been studied in epitaxial ZnO thin films with different thicknesses that range between 136 and 21 nm. We report a systematic decrease in photoconductivity and a red shift in band edge photoconductance spectra when the thickness is reduced. For thinner films, it is found that the effective energy gap value diminishes. By time dependent photoconductivity measurements, we found an enhanced contribution of the slow relaxation times for thicker films. These effects are interpreted in terms of a band-bending contribution where the Franz-Keldysh effect and the polarization of ZnO play a major role in thinner films.

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