Appearance of room-temperature ferromagnetism in Cu-doped TiO2−delta films

S. DUHALDE; M. F. VIGNOLO; F. GOLMAR; C. CHILIOTTE; C. E. RODRÍGUEZ TORRES; L. A. ERRICO; A. F. CABRERA; M. RENTERÍA,; F. H. SÁNCHEZ; M. WEISSMANN

PHYSICAL REVIEW B - CONDENSED MATTER AND MATERIALS PHYSICS

American Physical Society

Lugar: Ridge, NY (USA); Año: 2005 vol. 72 p. 161313 - 161316

0163-1829

We report here the unexpected observation of significant room-temperature ferromagnetism in a semiconductor doped with nonmagnetic impurities, Cu-doped TiO2 thin films grown by pulsed laser deposition. The magnetic moment, calculated from the magnetization curves, resulted surprisingly large, about 1.5 Mu B per Cu atom. A large magnetic moment was also obtained from ab initio calculations, but only if an oxygen vacancy in the nearest-neighbor shell of Cu was present. This result suggests that the role of oxygen vacancies is crucial for the appearance of ferromagnetism. The calculations also predict that Cu doping favors the formation of oxygen vacancies.(Rapid Comm).Los números de página correctos son 161313(R)-1 al 161313-4 (El sistema no permite entrar caracteres alfanuméricos).