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Dominant ferromagnetic coupling over antiferromagnetic in Ni doped ZnO: First-principles calculations

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Abstract

The low magnetic moment (MM) in diluted magnetic semiconductors (DMS) at low impurity doping levels has triggered considerable research into condensed magnetic semiconductors (CMS).This work reports an ab-initio investigation of the electronic structures and magnetic properties of ZnO in a zinc-blende (ZB) structure doped with nickel ions. Ni-doped ZnO-based DMS and CMS exhibit a dominance of ferromagnetic coupling over antiferromagnetic. A robust increase in the magnetization has been observed as a function of Ni impurity levels. This material favors short-range magnetic interactions at the ground state, suggesting that the observed ferromagnetism is defined by the double exchange mechanism. The spin-polarized density of states (DOS) of Ni-doped ZnO characterizes it as half-metallic with a considerable energy gap for up-spin components and as metallic for-down spins. Half-metallic Ni:ZnO based magnetic semiconductors with high magnetization are expected to have potential applications in spintronics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, UniversitiTeknologi Malaysia, UTM Skudai, Johor, 81310, Malaysia

    Bakhtiar Ul Haq, Rashid Ahmed & Amiruddin Shaari

  2. Department of Physics, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, 440-746, Korea

    Bakhtiar Ul Haq

  3. Physik-Department ECS, Technische Universität München, James-Franck-Straβe 1, 85748, Garching, Germany

    Faheem K. Butt

  4. Department of Physics, The University of Lahore, 1-KM Defence Road, Lahore, Pakistan

    Faheem K. Butt

  5. Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt

    Galila Abdellatif

  6. Physics Department, College of Science, AlFaisal University, P.O. Box 50927, Riyadh, 11533, Saudi Arabia

    Mohammed Benali Kanoun & Souraya Goumri-Said

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  1. Bakhtiar Ul Haq
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  2. Rashid Ahmed
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Correspondence to Rashid Ahmed or Souraya Goumri-Said.

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Haq, B.U., Ahmed, R., Abdellatif, G. et al. Dominant ferromagnetic coupling over antiferromagnetic in Ni doped ZnO: First-principles calculations. Front. Phys. 11, 117101 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11467-015-0542-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11467-015-0542-5

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