Families of magnetic semiconductors -- an overview

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of various magnetic semiconductor families, discussing their properties, functionalities, and relevance to current and emerging spintronic and topological applications.

Contribution

It offers a broad survey of magnetic semiconductors, highlighting their key properties and recent developments from the perspective of modern spintronics and 2D materials.

Findings

Identification of key properties of magnetic semiconductor families

Discussion of sources of non-uniform magnetization

Relevance to spintronics and topological materials

Abstract

The interplay of magnetic and semiconducting properties has been in the focus since more than a half of the century. In this introductory article we briefly review the key properties and functionalities of various magnetic semiconductor families, including europium chalcogenides, chromium spinels, dilute magnetic semiconductors, dilute ferromagnetic semiconductors and insulators, mentioning also sources of non-uniformities in the magnetization distribution, accounting for an apparent high Curie temperature ferromagnetism in many systems. Our survey is carried out from today's perspective of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic spintronics as well as of the emerging fields of magnetic topological materials and atomically thin 2D layers.