Nanoscale inhomogeneities: A new path toward high Curie temperature ferromagnetism in diluted materials

Abstract

Room temperature ferromagnetism has been one of the most sought after topics in today's emerging field of spintronics. It is strongly believed that defect- and inhomogeneity- free sample growth should be the optimal route for achieving room-temperature ferromagnetism and huge efforts are made in order to grow samples as "clean" as possible. However, until now, in the dilute regime it has been difficult to obtain Curie temperatures larger than that measured in well annealed samples of (Ga,Mn)As ($\sim$190 K for 12% doping). In the present work, we propose an innovative path to room-temperature ferromagnetism in diluted magnetic semiconductors. We theoretically show that even a very small concentration of nanoscale inhomogeneities can lead to a tremendous boost of the critical temperatures: up to a 1600% increase compared to the homogeneous case. In addition to a very detailed analysis, we also give a plausible explanation for the wide variation of the critical temperatures observed in (Ga,Mn)N and provide a better understanding of the likely origin of very high Curie temperatures measured occasionally in some cases. The colossal increase of the ordering temperatures by nanoscale cluster inclusions should open up a new direction toward the synthesis of materials relevant for spintronic functionalities.

16 pages, 4 figures, New references added and Text revised to match the accepted version

References in corpus (6)

• Theory of ferromagnetic (III,Mn)V semiconductors
• Clustering in a precipitate free GeMn magnetic semiconductor
• Magnetic and electronic transport percolation in epitaxial GeMn films
• High Curie temperatures in (Ga,Mn)N from Mn clustering
• Unified picture for diluted magnetic semiconductors
• Dynamical properties of a three-dimensional diluted Heisenberg model

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Precise tuning of the Curie temperature of (Ga,Mn)As-based magnetic semiconductors by hole compensation: Support for valence-band ferromagnetism
• Reconsidering the possibility of room temperature ferromagnetism in Mn doped Zirconium oxide
• Determination of the Fermi Level Position in Dilute Magnetic Ga${}_{1-x}$Mn${}_x$N Films
• Spontaneous magnetization in presence of nanoscale inhomogeneities in diluted magnetic systems
• Spin-wave excitations in presence of nanoclusters of magnetic impurities
• Generation and control of spin-polarized photocurrents in GaMnAs heterostructures
• Quantum confinement : A route to enhance the Curie temperature of Mn doped GaAs