Rare-earth mononitrides

Abstract

When the rare earth mononitrides (RENs) first burst onto the scientific scene in the middle of last century, there were feverish dreams that their strong magnetic moment would afford a wide range of applications. For decades research was frustrated by poor stoichiometry and the ready reaction of the materials in ambient conditions, and only recently have these impediments finally been overcome by advances in thin film fabrication with ultra-high vacuum based growth technology. Currently, the field of research into the RENs is growing rapidly, motivated by the materials demands of proposed electronic and spintronic devices. Both semiconducting and ferromagnetic properties have been established in some of the RENs which thus attract interest for the potential to exploit the spin of charge carriers in semiconductor technologies for both fundamental and applied science. In this review, we take stock of where progress has occurred within the last decade in both theoretical and experimental fields, and which has led to the point where a proof-of-concept spintronic device based on RENs has already been demonstrated. The article is organized into three major parts. First, we describe the epitaxial growth of REN thin films and their structural properties, with an emphasis on their prospective spintronic applications. Then, we conduct a critical review of the different advanced theoretical calculations utilised to determine both the electronic structure and the origins of the magnetism in these compounds. The rest of the review is devoted to the recent experimental results on optical, electrical and magnetic properties and their relation to current theoretical descriptions. These results are discussed particularly with regard to the controversy about the exact nature of the magnetic state and conduction processes in the RENs.

34 pages, 14 figures

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• Quasiparticle self-consistent $GW$ method; a basis for the independent-particle approximation
• Massive Dirac surface states in topological insulator/magnetic insulator heterostructures
• Ferromagnetic redshift of the optical gap in GdN
• GW method applied to localized 4f electron systems
• Near-Zero Moment Ferromagnetism in the Semiconductor SmN
• Comparison between experiment and calculated band structures for DyN and SmN
• Spin/orbit moment imbalance in the near-zero moment ferromagnetic semiconductor SmN
• Simultaneous ferromagnetic metal-semiconductor transition in electron-doped EuO
• The role of magnetic polarons in ferromagnetic GdN
• Macroscopic quantum dynamics of pi-junctions with ferromagnetic insulators
• \textit{Additional} carrier-mediated ferromagnetism in GdN
• Multiplets Matter: The Electronic Structure of Rare-Earth Semiconductors and Semimetals
• Electric field and photo-excited control of the carrier concentration in GdN
• Epitaxial Ferromagnetic Nanoislands of Cubic GdN in Hexagonal GaN
• Ferromagnetism in multi-band Kondo lattice model

Cited by in corpus (20)

• Superconductivity in the ferromagnetic semiconductor SmN
• Treatment of 4f states of the rare-earths: the case study of TbN
• On the ferromagnetic ground state of SmN
• Twisted phase of the orbital-dominant ferromagnet SmN in a GdN/SmN heterostructure
• Electronic structure of rare-earth mononitrides: quasiatomic excitations and semiconducting bands
• Optical Spectroscopy of SmN: Evidence for 4f Transport
• Nearly triple nodal point topological phase in half-metallic GdN
• Highly resistive epitaxial Mg-doped GdN thin films
• Magnetism and electronic structure calculation of SmN
• Vertical transport and tunnelling in rare-earth nitride heterostructures
• 4f Conduction in the Magnetic Semiconductor NdN
• AlN interlayer to improve the epitaxial growth of SmN on GaN (0001)
• Multipolar exchange interaction and complex order in insulating lanthanides
• Discovering QCD-Coupled Axion Dark Matter with Polarization Haloscopes
• Tuneable magnetic behaviour, electronic structure and nitrogen vacancy formation in Gd${}_x$Sm${}_{1-x}$N
• Following enhanced Sm spin projection in Gd${}_x$Sm${}_{1-x}$N
• Spin Splitting Tunable Optical Bandgap in GdN Thin Films for Spin Filtering
• Raman signature of cation vacancies in rare-earth nitrides
• Rocksalt rare-earth monoxides as electronic and magnetic materials
• Nitrogen-Vacancy-Mediated Magnetism in Sputtered GdN Thin Films