Nanoscale inhomogeneities: A new path toward high Curie temperature ferromagnetism in diluted materials

TL;DR

This paper proposes that nanoscale inhomogeneities in diluted magnetic semiconductors can dramatically increase Curie temperatures, potentially enabling room-temperature ferromagnetism crucial for spintronics applications.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical approach showing small nanoscale inhomogeneities can significantly boost critical temperatures in diluted magnetic semiconductors, a novel strategy for achieving room-temperature ferromagnetism.

Findings

Nanoscale inhomogeneities can increase Curie temperature by up to 1600%.

Theoretical explanation for high Curie temperatures in (Ga,Mn)N.

Provides insights into the variability of critical temperatures in experiments.

Abstract

Room temperature ferromagnetism has been one of the most sought after topics in today's emerging field of spintronics. It is strongly believed that defect- and inhomogeneity- free sample growth should be the optimal route for achieving room-temperature ferromagnetism and huge efforts are made in order to grow samples as "clean" as possible. However, until now, in the dilute regime it has been difficult to obtain Curie temperatures larger than that measured in well annealed samples of (Ga,Mn)As ($\sim$190 K for 12% doping). In the present work, we propose an innovative path to room-temperature ferromagnetism in diluted magnetic semiconductors. We theoretically show that even a very small concentration of nanoscale inhomogeneities can lead to a tremendous boost of the critical temperatures: up to a 1600% increase compared to the homogeneous case. In addition to a very detailed analysis, we also give a plausible explanation for the wide variation of the critical temperatures observed in (Ga,Mn)N and provide a better understanding of the likely origin of very high Curie temperatures measured occasionally in some cases. The colossal increase of the ordering temperatures by nanoscale cluster inclusions should open up a new direction toward the synthesis of materials relevant for spintronic functionalities.