Room-temperature ferromagnetism in Cu-doped ZnO thin films

Abstract

A series of copper-doped zinc oxide films were grown by pulsed-laser ablation. Films grown under conditions that produced n-type ZnO were nonmagnetic while those grown under conditions that produced p-type were ferromagnetic with a Curie temperature above 350 K. The magnetic moment per copper atom decreased as the copper concentration increased. An explanation for this result is proposed based on the distance between nearest-neighbor copper atoms.