The Effect of Nonmagnetic Doping and Growth Temperature on the Magneto-Transport Properties of Manganese and Cobalt Doped Zinc Oxide Dilute Magnetic Semiconductors
Date of Graduation
Summer 2006
Degree
Master of Science in Materials Science
Department
Physics, Astronomy, and Materials Science
Committee Chair
Kartik Ghosh
Abstract
Dilute Magnetic Semiconductors (DMA) are a rare group of promising materials that utilize both electronic charge, a characteristic of semiconductor materials, and electronic spin, a characteristic of magnetic materials. This combination of charge and spin degrees of freedom in a single material leads to a unique interplay of magnetic, optical, and electronic functionalities. Recently, DMS have received much attention due to their potential use in novel spintronic devices and quantum bits. Oxide based DMS show promise of ferromagnetism at room temperature. Zinc Oxide (ZNO), a short wavelength transparent opto-electronic material, is an interesting prospect for spintronics due to its unique magnetic, electrical, and optical properties. ZnO doped with a transition metal like Mn, Co, or Fe and a nonmagnetic metal like Al, V, or Cu is a DMS that has strong exchange interaction between localized d electrons and SP band carriers. In this work, high quality thin films were deposited on c plane of sapphire single crystals using pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique. The effect of nonmagnetic doping using metals such as Al and Cu and growth temperature of Zn1-xMnxO (x=0.15) and Zn1-xCoxO (x=0.05) thin films were studied using X-Ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and Magneto-Transport techniques. XRD and Raman spectra confirm the epitaxial growth with a strong orientation along the c-axis, while AFM and SEM reveal surface micro structural information about the DMS films. Magneto-Transport studies quantify the carrier concentrations and motilities of various DMS films grown using PLD. Finally, the results are compared with theoretical values.
Keywords
semiconductor, ferromagnetism, pulse laser deposition, zinc oxide, spintronics
Subject Categories
Materials Science and Engineering
Copyright
© Govind Mundada
Recommended Citation
Mundada, Govind, "The Effect of Nonmagnetic Doping and Growth Temperature on the Magneto-Transport Properties of Manganese and Cobalt Doped Zinc Oxide Dilute Magnetic Semiconductors" (2006). MSU Graduate Theses. 2773.
https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses/2773
Dissertation/Thesis