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Pressure-induced ferromagnetism in (In,Mn)Sb dilute magnetic semiconductor

Nature Materials volume 4, pages 447–449 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

Recent advances in III1–xMnxV ferromagnetic semiconductors (for example in Ga1–xMnxAs) have demonstrated that electrical control of their spin properties can be used for manipulation and detection of magnetic signals1,2. The Mn2+ ions in these alloys provide magnetic moments, and at the same time act as a source of valence-band holes that mediate the Mn2+–Mn2+ interactions3,4,5. This coupling results in the ferromagnetic phase. In earlier work2,6it was shown that the ferromagnetic state can be enhanced or suppressed by varying the carrier density. Here we demonstrate that, by using hydrostatic pressure to continuously tune the wavefunction overlap, one can control the strength of ferromagnetic coupling without any change in the carrier concentration. Tuning the exchange coupling by this process increases the magnetization spectacularly, and can even induce the ferromagnetic phase in an initially paramagnetic alloy. These results may open new directions for strain-engineering of nanodevices.

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Figure 1: Temperature dependence of the resistivity at ambient hydrostatic pressure p = 100 kPa.
Figure 2: Temperature dependence of the resistivity measured at various hydrostatic pressures.
Figure 3: Hall resistivity as a function of magnetic field taken at several hydrostatic pressures.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Hungarian Science Foundation under grant no. TS040878 and T037451, the DARPA SpinS program, the US National Science Foundation NIRT award DMR 02-10519, the Polish Committee for Scientific Research through SPUB-M funding, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (B.J).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Electron Transport Research Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Department of Physics, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, 1111, Hungary

    M. Csontos & G. Mihály

  2. Department of Physics, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, 46556, Indiana, USA

    B. Jankó, T. Wojtowicz, X. Liu & J. K. Furdyna

  3. Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, 02-668, Poland

    T. Wojtowicz

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  1. M. Csontos
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  6. J. K. Furdyna
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Correspondence to J. K. Furdyna.

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Csontos, M., Mihály, G., Jankó, B. et al. Pressure-induced ferromagnetism in (In,Mn)Sb dilute magnetic semiconductor. Nature Mater 4, 447–449 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1388

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