24 research outputs found
Ferromagnetism in bulk Co-Zn-O
The origin of ferromagnetism in diluted magnetic semiconductors is still an open question, yielding a great deal of research across the world. This work focuses on the Co-Zn-O system. Room-temperature ferromagnetism is observed after a partial reaction of Co_3O_4 and ZnO, which can be ascribed neither to carrier mediation nor segregated cobalt metallic clusters. Another mechanism is yielding room-temperature ferromagnetism. This mechanism is associated with a partial reaction of ZnO and Co_3O_4 grains, and always appears when the starting phases (Co_3O_4 and ZnO) are present in the sample, suggesting that interfaces are involved in the origin of the observed ferromagnetism
Ferromagnetic transition metal implanted ZnO: a diluted magnetic semiconductor?
Recently theoretical works predict that some semiconductors (e.g. ZnO) doped
with magnetic ions are diluted magnetic semiconductors (DMS). In DMS magnetic
ions substitute cation sites of the host semiconductor and are coupled by free
carriers resulting in ferromagnetism. One of the main obstacles in creating DMS
materials is the formation of secondary phases because of the solid-solubility
limit of magnetic ions in semiconductor host. In our study transition metal
ions were implanted into ZnO single crystals with the peak concentrations of
0.5-10 at.%. We established a correlation between structural and magnetic
properties. By synchrotron radiation X-ray diffraction (XRD) secondary phases
(Fe, Ni, Co and ferrite nanocrystals) were observed and have been identified as
the source for ferromagnetism. Due to their different crystallographic
orientation with respect to the host crystal these nanocrystals in some cases
are very difficult to be detected by a simple Bragg-Brentano scan. This results
in the pitfall of using XRD to exclude secondary phase formation in DMS
materials. For comparison, the solubility of Co diluted in ZnO films ranges
between 10 and 40 at.% using different growth conditions pulsed laser
deposition. Such diluted, Co-doped ZnO films show paramagnetic behaviour.
However, only the magnetoresistance of Co-doped ZnO films reveals possible s-d
exchange interaction as compared to Co-implanted ZnO single crystals.Comment: 27 pages, 8 figure
Influence of Cobalt Doping on the Physical Properties of Zn0.9Cd0.1S Nanoparticles
Zn0.9Cd0.1S nanoparticles doped with 0.005–0.24 M cobalt have been prepared by co-precipitation technique in ice bath at 280 K. For the cobalt concentration >0.18 M, XRD pattern shows unidentified phases along with Zn0.9Cd0.1S sphalerite phase. For low cobalt concentration (≤0.05 M) particle size, dXRDis ~3.5 nm, while for high cobalt concentration (>0.05 M) particle size decreases abruptly (~2 nm) as detected by XRD. However, TEM analysis shows the similar particle size (~3.5 nm) irrespective of the cobalt concentration. Local strain in the alloyed nanoparticles with cobalt concentration of 0.18 M increases ~46% in comparison to that of 0.05 M. Direct to indirect energy band-gap transition is obtained when cobalt concentration goes beyond 0.05 M. A red shift in energy band gap is also observed for both the cases. Nanoparticles with low cobalt concentrations were found to have paramagnetic nature with no antiferromagnetic coupling. A negative Curie–Weiss temperature of −75 K with antiferromagnetic coupling was obtained for the high cobalt concentration
Green coloration of Co-doped ZnO explained from structural refinement and bond considerations
ZnO doped with Co2+ has been prepared by a Pechini process and investigated in terms of crystallographic structure and UV-visible properties. We emphasize for the first time a splitting of the ZnO band gap in two "sub-band gaps" (never clearly mentioned until now) which is fully interpreted basing on the iono-covalent nature of the O-Zn bonds. An anticipative approach of the potential structure relaxations was discussed from exchanged effective charge per bond calculated with the purely ionic Brown and Altermatt model