Magnetism of CoO polymorphs

TL;DR

This study uses theoretical methods to analyze the magnetic properties of CoO in different polymorphs, finding that bulk CoO is unlikely to cause room temperature ferromagnetism in ZnO:Co, but other nanoscale effects remain uncertain.

Contribution

It provides a detailed theoretical investigation of CoO polymorphs' magnetism, clarifying their inability to explain room temperature ferromagnetism in ZnO:Co.

Findings

Wurtzite and zincblende CoO have frustrated antiferromagnetic ground states.

Critical temperatures for CoO polymorphs are below room temperature.

Bulk CoO polymorphs are unlikely to cause observed room temperature ferromagnetism.

Abstract

A microscopic explanation for the room temperature ferromagnetism in diluted ZnO:Co is at present rather elusive. Although standard secondary phases can usually be ruled out, it is less clear whether regions with high Co concentration coexist with undoped portions of the film, i.e. whether some form of CoO polymorph can be responsible for the magnetic signal. Since X-ray usually excludes the presence of the native rock-salt phase, the study of CoO polymorphs becomes particularly interesting. In this work we investigate theoretically the magnetism of CoO in both the wurtzite and zincblende phases. By using a combination of density functional theory with the LDA+$U$ approximation and Monte Carlo simulations we demonstrate that wurtzite and zincblende CoO have a complex frustrated anti-ferromagnetic ground state with no net magnetic moment in the bulk. Most importantly the estimated critical temperatures are well below room temperature for both cases. This suggests that bulk CoO polymorphs are not responsible for the room temperature magnetism observed for ZnO:Co, although the role of clusters with uncompensated spins or arranged in a spinodal decomposed structure still remains an open question.