Synthesis, characterization, and modeling of high quality ferromagnetic Cr-doped AlN thin films

By Stephen Y. Wu, H. Liu, L. Gu, Rakesh Singh, L. Budd, M. Schilfgaarde, M. R. McCartney, D. Smith, N. Newman. 2002

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We report a theoretical and experimental investigation of Cr-doped AlN. Density functional calculations predict that the isolated Cr t2 defect level in AlN is 1/3 full, falls approximately at midgap, and broadens into an impurity band for concentrations over 5%. Substitutional Al1−xCrxN random alloys with 0.05⩽x⩽0.15 are predicted to have Curie temperatures over 600 K. Experimentally, we have characterized and optimized the molecular beam epitaxy thin film growth process, and observed room temperature ferromagnetism with a coercive field, Hc, of 120 Oe. The measured magnetic susceptibility indicates that over 33% of the Cr is magnetically active at room temperature and 40% at low temperature.

Subfields: Biomedical Engineering, Condensed Matter Physics, Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/61f1d279041cbce45a4029bffa8a1c7cb5f2951c