Growth and properties of ferromagnetic In(1-x)Mn(x)Sb alloys

TL;DR

This paper reports on the growth and magnetic properties of the ferromagnetic semiconductor alloy In(1-x)Mn(x)Sb, demonstrating carrier-mediated ferromagnetism with potential for spintronic applications.

Contribution

It introduces a new ferromagnetic alloy grown by low-temperature molecular-beam epitaxy and characterizes its magnetic and transport properties, linking them to theoretical models.

Findings

In(1-x)Mn(x)Sb exhibits ferromagnetic behavior with hysteresis.

The alloy shows a cusp in resistivity and large anomalous Hall effect.

Curie temperatures reach up to 8.5 K, consistent with mean-field theory.

Abstract

We discuss a new narrow-gap ferromagnetic (FM) semiconductor alloy, In(1-x)Mn(x)Sb, and its growth by low-temperature molecular-beam epitaxy. The magnetic properties were investigated by direct magnetization measurements, electrical transport, magnetic circular dichroism, and the magneto-optical Kerr effect. These data clearly indicate that In(1-x)Mn(x)Sb possesses all the attributes of a system with carrier-mediated FM interactions, including well-defined hysteresis loops, a cusp in the temperature dependence of the resistivity, strong negative magnetoresistance, and a large anomalous Hall effect. The Curie temperatures in samples investigated thus far range up to 8.5 K, which are consistent with a mean-field-theory simulation of the carrier-induced ferromagnetism based on the 8-band effective band-orbital method.