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Nature Materials 5, 291–297 (1 April 2006) | doi:10.1038/nmat1616

Electronic structure origins of polarity-dependent high-TC ferromagnetism in oxide-diluted magnetic semiconductors

Kevin R. Kittilstved , William K. Liu & Daniel R. Gamelin

Future spintronics technologies based on diluted magnetic semiconductors (DMSs) will rely heavily on a sound understanding of the microscopic origins of ferromagnetism in such materials. Discoveries of room-temperature ferromagnetism in wide-bandgap DMSs hold great promise, but this ferromagnetism remains poorly understood. Here we demonstrate a close link between the electronic structures and polarity-dependent high-TC ferromagnetism of TM2+:ZnO|[nbsp]|DMSs, where TM2+ denotes 3d transition metal ions. Trends in ferromagnetism across the 3d series of TM2+:ZnO|[nbsp]|DMSs predicted from the energies of donor- and acceptor-type excited states reproduce experimental trends well. These results provide a unified basis for understanding both n- and p-type ferromagnetic oxide DMSs.