Epitaxial Growth of an n-type Ferromagnetic Semiconductor CdCr2Se4 on GaAs(001) and GaP(001)

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the successful epitaxial growth of n-type ferromagnetic CdCr2Se4 on GaAs and GaP substrates, revealing its structural, magnetic, and electronic properties with potential for spintronic applications.

Contribution

It reports the first epitaxial growth of CdCr2Se4 on GaAs and GaP, detailing its magnetic and electronic characteristics, including ferromagnetism at 130 K and n-type semiconducting behavior.

Findings

Ferromagnetic order with Curie temperature of 130 K

Hysteretic magnetization with in-plane easy axis

Semiconducting n-type behavior with carrier concentration ~1x10^18 cm^-3

Abstract

We report the epitaxial growth of CdCr2Se4, an n-type ferromagnetic semiconductor, on both GaAs and GaP(001) substrates, and describe the structural, magnetic and electronic properties. Magnetometry data confirm ferromagnetic order with a Curie temperature of 130 K, as in the bulk material. The magnetization exhibits hysteretic behavior with significant remanence, and an in-plane easy axis with a coercive field of ~125 Oe. Temperature dependent transport data show that the films are semiconducting in character and n-type as grown, with room temperature carrier concentrations of n ~ 1 x 10^18 cm-3.