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Effect of annealing on the structural, electrical and magnetic properties of Gd-implanted ZnO thin films

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Abstract

We report the results from structural, electrical and magnetic measurements on Gd-implanted ion beam deposited zinc oxide (ZnO) films. 40 keV Gd ions were implanted into 150 nm thick ZnO films with fluence 2.8 × 1015 cm−2. RBS spectra reveal the implanted atoms are located in the near-surface region in as-implanted and up to 923 K annealed films, diffusing deeper into the films after 1073 K annealing. SEM images show that the average grain size increases from 10 to 30 nm upon annealing. High-resolution and energy-filtered transmission electron microscopy of a ZnO:Gd sample annealed at 923 K reveal the presence of Gd-rich regions in the film, but no evidence of pure Gd precipitates. Annealing increases the resistivity, and the carrier concentration decreases by as much as six orders of magnitude after annealing at up to 1073 K. All annealed films display a mix of paramagnetic, superparamagnetic and ferromagnetic behaviour extending to temperatures above 300 K that we attribute to the spatially inhomogeneous Gd distribution. The paramagnetic behaviour can be attributed to isolated Gd moments, while the ordered magnetic phases appear to arise from Gd-rich regions within the ZnO. X-ray absorption near edge spectroscopy provides evidence that there exist oxygen vacancies.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge funding from the Foundation for Research Science and Technology of New Zealand (C05X0408) and the MacDiarmid Institute. The authors are grateful to the New Zealand synchrotron group and the Soft X-ray Beamline scientist Dr. Bruce Cowie, and other staff at the Australian Synchrotron for their help. The authors acknowledge the assistance provided by Dr. Toby Hopf for SEM, and Dr. Shen Chong and Jibu Stephen for MPMS measurements. J. Leveneur is acknowledged for fruitful discussion of the XANES and MPMS data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Isotope Centre, GNS Science, P.O. Box 31312, Lower Hutt, New Zealand

    P. P. Murmu, J. Kennedy & A. Markwitz

  2. School of Chemical and Physical Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand

    P. P. Murmu & B. J. Ruck

  3. The MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, Wellington, New Zealand

    P. P. Murmu, J. Kennedy, B. J. Ruck, G. V. M. Williams & A. Markwitz

  4. Industrial Research Limited, P.O. Box 31310, Lower Hutt, New Zealand

    G. V. M. Williams

  5. Inst Bio21, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, 3010, Australia

    S. Rubanov

  6. Centre for Microscopy, Characterization and Analysis, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia

    A. A. Suvorova

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  1. P. P. Murmu
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  2. J. Kennedy
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Correspondence to J. Kennedy.

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Murmu, P.P., Kennedy, J., Ruck, B.J. et al. Effect of annealing on the structural, electrical and magnetic properties of Gd-implanted ZnO thin films. J Mater Sci 47, 1119–1126 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-011-5883-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-011-5883-z

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