Improved-Sensitivity Integral SQUID Magnetometry of (Ga,Mn)N Thin Films in Proximity to Mg-doped GaN

TL;DR

This study enhances the sensitivity of SQUID magnetometry to accurately analyze (Ga,Mn)N thin films with Mg-doped GaN layers, revealing consistent magnetic properties and highlighting challenges in achieving carrier-mediated ferromagnetism.

Contribution

It introduces a novel in situ compensation technique for SQUID measurements, significantly improving measurement precision for magnetic thin films.

Findings

Magnetic properties of (Ga,Mn)N are consistent with known superexchange-driven ferromagnetism and paramagnetism.

Mg doping in cladding layers does not induce ferromagnetism due to residual Mn deactivating p-type doping.

Enhanced measurement accuracy confirms the absence of ferromagnetic effects from Mg doping in the studied structures.

Abstract

Nominally 45 nm GaN:Mg/ 5 nm (Ga,Mn)N / 45 nm GaN:Mg trilayers structures prepared by molecular beam epitaxy on GaN-buffered Al2O3 substrates are investigated to verify whether the indirect co-doping by holes from the cladding layers can alter the spin-spin interaction in (Ga,Mn)N. The four investigated structures, differing with the Mg doping level, are carefully characterized at the nanoscale by HRTEM, EDX, and by SIMS. HRTEM decisively excluded a presence of foreign Mn-rich phases. The structures, up to medium Mg doping, show no Mg over-doping effects. Magnetic studies of these structures are aided by the employment of a dedicated experimental approach of the in situ compensation of the magnetic contribution from the substrate, allowing up to about fifty-fold reduction of this contribution. This technique, dedicated to these structures, simultaneously provides a tenfold reduction of temporal instabilities of the magnetometric unit and lowers the experimental jitter to merely $5 \times 10^{-7}$~emu at 70~kOe, vastly increasing the precision and the credibility of the results of the standard integral SQUID magnetometry in high magnetic fields. The magnetic characteristics of the trilayers structures established here prove identical with the already known properties of the thick (Ga,Mn)N single layers, namely (i) the low temperature ferromagnetism among Mn$^{3+}$ ions driven by superexchange and (ii) purely paramagnetic response at higher temperatures. The possible cause of the lack of any effects brought about by the adjacent Mg-doping is a presence of residual Mn in the cladding layers, resulting in the deactivation of the p-type doping intended there. This finding points out that a more intensive technological effort has to be exerted to promote the co-doping-driven carrier-mediated ferromagnetic coupling in Mn-enriched GaN, especially at elevated temperatures.