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Synthesis and characterization of high quality ferromagnetic Cr-doped GaN and AlN thin films with Curie temperatures above 900K

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Abstract

Reactive MBE growth was used to synthesize ferromagnetic Cr-doped GaN and AlN thin films with Curie temperatures above 900K. 2% Cr-doped GaN and 7% Cr-doped AlN were found to have a saturation magnetization moment of 0.42 and 0.6 µB/Cr atom, indicating that ~14% and ~20% of the Cr, respectively, are magnetically active. Structural characterization using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) did not find evidence of a ferromagnetic secondary phase. Electrical characterization indicate that the resistivity of the Cr-doped GaN films depends exponentially on temperature as R=Roexp[(To/T)1/2], characteristic of variable range hopping. In contrast, Cr-doped AlN films are highly resistive. Local spin density functional calculations predict that Cr forms a deep level defect in both systems and the t2 level falls approximately at midgap. Our theoretical and experimental results indicate that ferromagnetism in Cr-doped GaN and AlN arises as a result of the double exchange mechanism within the partially filled Cr t2 band.

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Acknowledgments

The work was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and administered by the Office of Naval Research under contracts N00014-02-1-0598, N00014-02-1-1025 and N00014-02-1-0967.

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Wu, S.Y., Liu, H.X., Gu, L. et al. Synthesis and characterization of high quality ferromagnetic Cr-doped GaN and AlN thin films with Curie temperatures above 900K. MRS Online Proceedings Library 798, 12–16 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1557/PROC-798-Y10.57

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/PROC-798-Y10.57

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