Magnetic properties of Co doped CeO2−± nanopowders.

MARIANO ANDRÉS PAULÍN; A. G. LEYVA; JOAQUIN SACANELL

Conferencia; At the Frontiers in Condensed Matter V - FCM 2010; 2010

Departamento de Física de la Materia Condensada, Gerencia de Investigación y Aplicaciones, CAC, CNEA

The development of spintronics has promoted thestudy of materials with strong coupling between theirelectric and magnetic properties. For that kind ofapplications, the materials should have a high spinpolarization and also present structural compatibilitywith existing semiconductors. Among materials thatmeet these requirements are the diluted magnetic ox-ides such as Co doped CeO2. The pure compoundis a diamagnetic insulator, but on doping with mag-netic ions like Co, Mn or Fe, the system can becomeparamagnetic or ferromagnetic. The great capabil-ity to accomodate oxygen vacancies in its structureseems to be the responsible for this particular behav-ior. In this work we study the magnetic properties ofCo doped CeO2 nanopowders, as a function of dopingand the relative concentration of oxygen vacancies,by performing thermal treatments of the samples ina vacuum chamber. Our results indicate that mag-netism is enhanced in samples with higher concentra-tion of oxygen vacancies.