ApplPhysLett 87 172502
ApplPhysLett 87 172502
ApplPhysLett 87 172502
Recent interest in spintronic devices, which utilize the were due to dopants in substitutional sites or precipitates/
spin degree of freedom of the electron, has attracted wide- clusters of a second phase. Hence, we have performed a sys-
spread attention. There are various novel device concepts, tematic study of the vanadium doped ZnO thin films for
which have been proposed that are based on this technology, concentrations of 1% to 20%, prepared using pulsed laser
and a few 共e.g., read heads for magnetic recorders and non- deposition technique. Special emphasis has been placed on
volatile memory components兲 that have already found prac- the correlation of microstructural and optical characteristics
tical applications.1 Diluted magnetic semiconductors 共DMS兲, of the films with their magnetic properties. We have probed
obtained by incorporating magnetic impurities into host this aspect to conclusively provide evidence for the absence
semiconductors, have been shown to be promising candidate of ferromagnetism in this system using various techniques
materials for such applications. But owing to the low Tc of including high resolution transmission electron microscopy
the early DMS 共e.g., Mn-doped GaAs has a Tc below 180 K兲 共HRTEM兲 and electron energy loss spectroscopy 共EELS兲.
the initial demonstrations were only possible at low Zn1−xVxO 共x = 0.01– 0.2, nominal composition of the tar-
temperatures.2 Practical applications will require ferromag- get兲 thin films were grown on the c-plane of sapphire single
netism in these systems to extend above room temperature. crystal substrates, by pulsed-laser deposition. The targets
Following the theoretical works of Dietl et al.,3 and Kazunori were prepared by the conventional solid-state reaction tech-
et al.4, there have been experimental reports confirming the nique. A pulsed KrF excimer laser with a wavelength of 248
presence of room temperature ferromagnetism 共RTFM兲 in nm was used for the deposition. The energy density and the
III-V and II-VI semiconductors. Both GaN and ZnO have repetition rate of the laser beam were 2 – 4 J / cm2 and 10 Hz,
been studied as potential systems and a variety of dopants respectively. Thin film growth was carried out over a tem-
have been studied with mixed results. For example, several perature range of 400–600 °C and at a pressure of 10−6 Torr,
works on Co doped ZnO5 and Mn doped GaN have reported for 15–20 min yielding films about 0.2–0.4 microns in thick-
RTFM in these systems. Ueda et al. studied various transi- ness. X-ray diffraction measurements on the grown films
tion metal doped ZnO systems and found that particular were performed using a Rigaku x-ray Diffractomer with
compositions of Co in ZnO resulted in RTFM.6 Also, there Cu-K␣ radiation and a Ni filter. Magnetic measurements
are contradicting reports on Mn doped ZnO where a few were carried out using a quantum design 共SQUID兲 magneto-
have ruled out the possibility of RTFM at higher meter over a temperature range of 10–300 K. Microstructural
concentrations7 but a more recent report has found RTFM in and epitaxial characterization including atomic structure and
Mn doped ZnO at relatively low concentrations.8 It appears chemistry investigations were conducted using high resolu-
that the presence or absence of ferromagnetism is fundamen- tion TEM and EELS in a JEOL-2010 field emission trans-
tally tied to the exact microstructure of these materials9 and mission electron microscope equipped with a GIF 共Gatan
that careful microstructural characterization of the systems is Image Filter兲 tuning attachment. It should be pointed out that
required to understand their magnetic properties. x-ray diffraction 共 – 2兲 investigations reveal axial align-
In the sparsely studied V-doped ZnO system, ferromag- ment only in the direction perpendicular to the film / sub-
netism was observed by Saeki et al.,10 and Venkatesan strate interface, whereas, cross section TEM provides infor-
et al.11 but there has been no microstructural characterization mation on the alignment in all of the three axes, thus
done in this system so far, to confirm whether the properties confirming epitaxial growth or single crystal growth of thin
films. Optical measurements 共absorption/transmission兲 were
a兲
Electronic mail: sramach@unity.ncsu.edu made using a Hitachi Spectrophotometer.