Unraveling the origin of magnetism in mesoporous Cu-doped SnO₂ magnetic semiconductor
Fan, Junpeng (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Física)
Menéndez Dalmau, Enric (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Física)
Guerrero, Miguel (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Física)
Quintana Puebla, Alberto (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Física)
Weschke, Eugen (Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie)
Pellicer Vilà, Eva Maria (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Física)
Sort Viñas, Jordi (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Física)

Date:	2017
Abstract:	The origin of magnetism in wide-gap semiconductors doped with non-ferromagnetic 3d transition metals still remains intriguing. In this article, insights in the magnetic properties of ordered mesoporous Cu-doped SnO₂ powders, prepared by hard-templating, have been unraveled. Whereas, both oxygen vacancies and Fe-based impurity phases could be a plausible explanation for the observed room temperature ferromagnetism, the low temperature magnetism is mainly and unambiguously arising from the nanoscale nature of the formed antiferromagnetic CuO, which results in a net magnetization that is reminiscent of ferromagnetic behavior. This is ascribed to uncompensated spins and shape-mediated spin canting effects. The reduced blocking temperature, which resides between 30 and 5 K, and traces of vertical shifts in the hysteresis loops confirm size effects in CuO. The mesoporous nature of the system with a large surface-to-volume ratio likely promotes the occurrence of uncompensated spins, spin canting, and spin frustration, offering new prospects in the use of magnetic semiconductors for energy-efficient spintronics.
Grants:	European Commission 665919 European Commission 648454 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad MAT2014-57960-C3-1-R Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad RYC-2012-10839 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2014/SGR-1015
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Nanocasting ; Mesoporous SnO₂ particles ; Diluted magnetic semiconductors
Published in:	Nanomaterials, Vol. 7, issue 11 (Nov. 2017) , art. 348, ISSN 2079-4991

DOI: 10.3390/nano7110348
PMID: 29068367

18 p, 1.8 MB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > Group of Smart Nanoengineered Materials, Nanomechanics and Nanomagnetism (Gnm3) > SPIN-PORICS
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles