PNNL

Abstract

Interest in diluted magnetic semiconductros (DMS) is growing rapidly within the emerging field of spintronics. For example, the ability to efficiently inject spin-polarized carriers into nonmagnetic semiconductor heterostructures creates new and exciting possibilities for utilizing DMS materials in spin-based devices. Several III-V and II-VI semiconductor materials doped with magnetic transition metal elements have been explored. Although these materials show promising behavior in some cases, most exhibit Curie temperatures of ~170 K or less. It has recently been shown that certain oxide semiconductors doped with magnetic transition elements show room-temperature ferromagnetism.