Evidence of intrinsic ferromagnetism in individual dilute magnetic semiconducting nanostructures

Abstract

Semiconductors doped with magnetic ions, also known as dilute magnetic semiconductors, are both semiconducting and ferromagnetic. It remains unclear, however, whether this ferromagnetism is intrinsic, as is required for spintronic applications, or is due instead to dopant clustering. Here, we report conclusive evidence for intrinsic ferromagnetism in individual ZnO nanoparticles doped with transition metal ions. Through a simultaneous magnetic and microstructural characterization using electron magnetic chiral dichroism and channelling-enhanced electron energy loss microanalysis, respectively, we show that ZnO nanoparticles have intrinsic ferromagnetism when doped with cobalt, but not when doped with iron.

By any other name

“…In physics, we've published many science papers, from the purely analytical 1 to numerical calculations 2 to the primarily experimental 3 . Similarly, in chemistry, we've published basic work in electrocatalysis, like that shown on the cover of this issue 4 , and DNA methylation 5 , as well as the synthesis of complex nanostructures ( Fig.…”

Characterization of Room-Temperature Ferromagnetic Zn1-xCoxO Nanowires

“…There are so many experimental and theoretical reports on claiming that Co-doped ZnO is an intrinsically DMS (Schwartz & Gamelin, 2004;Coey et al, 2005;Neal et al, 2006;Zhang et al, 2009). Very recently, different magnetic mechanisms are uncovered in insulating and magnetic regimes (Behan et al, 2008).…”

Characterization of magnetic domain walls using electron magnetic chiral dichroism

“…In particular, they explored the magnetic properties of thin films and individual nanoparticles by EMCD and dichroic map simulation [15]. Owing to its high spatial resolution, EMCD is becoming a key microscopic characterization method in spintronics and nanomagnetism [16,17].…”