Appearance of room temperature ferromagnetism in Cu-doped TiO${}_{2-\delta }$ films

Abstract

In recent years there has been an intense search for room temperature ferromagnetism in doped dilute semiconductors, which have many potentially applications in spintronics and optoelectronics. We report here the unexpected observation of significant room temperature ferromagnetism in a semiconductor doped with nonmagnetic impurities, Cu-doped TiO${}_2$ thin films grown by Pulsed Laser Deposition. The magnetic moment, calculated from the magnetization curves, resulted surprisingly large, about 1.5 ${\mu }_B$ per Cu atom. A large magnetic moment was also obtained from ab initio calculations using the supercell method for TiO${}_2$ with Cu impurities, but only if an oxygen vacancy in the nearest-neighbour shell of Cu was present. This result suggests that the role of oxygen vacancies is crucial for the appearance of ferromagnetism. The calculations also predict that Cu doping favours the formation of oxygen vacancies.

4 pages, 3 figures, published in Phys. Rev. B (Rapid Comm.)

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• d0 Ferromagnetism in Ag-doped Monoclinic ZrO2 Compounds
• The role of vacancies, impurities and crystal structure in the magnetic properties of TiO2
• d0 Ferromagnetism in Li-doped ZnO Compounds
• Magnetic and structural study of Cu-doped TiO2 thin films
• Harnessing the Duality of Magnetism and Conductivity: A Review of Oxide based Dilute Magnetic Semiconductors
• XAS study of the local environment of impurities in doped TiO2 thin films
• Ab initio study of magnetism at the TiO2/LaAlO3 interface
• Engineering the electronic structure of TiO${}_2$ by transition metal doping: A First Principles DFT Study