Density-Functional Study on the Origin of Ferromagnetism in Copper Doped Aluminium Nitride

Abstract

Abstract-Recently, room-temperature ferromagnetism was reported in Cu-doped AlN film. However, a systematic study on the magnetic mediation of intrinsic vacancy is still absent and the origin of ferromagnetism of Cu-doped AlN remains unclear. We investigate the magnetic properties of Cu-doped AlN by firstprinciples calculations. Our results reveal that the ferromagnetism is very weak for Cu substitution only. However, both the anion and cation vacancies can mediate the ferromagnetism effectively. Under the N-poor conditions, the defect complex with N vacancy has much lower formation energy and the origin of ferromagnetism can be attributed to the Nvacancy mediated p-d hybridization.