Intrinsic Room Temperature Ferromagnetism in Boron-doped ZnO

TL;DR

This study demonstrates room temperature ferromagnetism in boron-doped ZnO films through experimental deposition and theoretical calculations, revealing the magnetic origin related to oxygen atoms near B-Zn vacancies.

Contribution

It provides the first combined experimental and theoretical evidence of intrinsic room temperature ferromagnetism in B-doped ZnO.

Findings

Ferromagnetism observed at room temperature in B-doped ZnO films.

Magnetization increases with boron concentration.

Theoretical calculations explain the magnetic origin from oxygen near B-Zn vacancies.

Abstract

We report room temperature ferromagnetism in boron-doped ZnO both experimentally and theoretically. The single phase Zn1-xBxO films deposited under high oxygen pressure by pulsed-laser deposition show ferromagnetic behavior at room temperature. The saturation magnetization increases monotonously from 0 to 1.5 emu/cm3 with the increasing of B component x from 0 to 6.8%. The first-principles calculations based on density functional theory demonstrate that the ferromagnetism in B-doped ZnO originates from the induced magnetic moments of oxygen atoms in the nearest neighbor sites to the B-Zn vacancy pair. The calculated total magnetic moment increasing tendency with B component is well consistent with experiments.