Element Specific Versus Integral Structural and Magnetic Properties of Co:ZnO and Gd:GaN Probed with Hard X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy

Dilute magnetic semiconductors (DMS) are envisioned as sources of spin-polarized carriers for future semiconductor devices which simultaneously utilize spin and charge of the carriers. The hope of discovering a DMS with ferromagnetic order up to room temperature still motivates research on suitable...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Andreas Ney
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2010-06-01
Series:Materials
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1944/3/6/3565/
Description
Summary:Dilute magnetic semiconductors (DMS) are envisioned as sources of spin-polarized carriers for future semiconductor devices which simultaneously utilize spin and charge of the carriers. The hope of discovering a DMS with ferromagnetic order up to room temperature still motivates research on suitable DMS materials. Two candidate wide-band gap DMS are Gd:GaN and Co:ZnO. We have used hard X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and in particular X-ray linear dichroism (XLD) and X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) to study both DMS materials with element specificity and compare these findings with results from integral SQUID magnetometry as well as electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR).
ISSN:1996-1944