Room temperature ferromagnetism of Cu doped ZnO nanowire arrays

Abstract

We report the room temperature ferromagnetism of Cu doped ZnO nanowire arrays embedded in anodic aluminum oxide template. The nanowires about 100 nm in diameter were fabricated by electrodepositing Zn2+ and Cu2+ into the template and postoxidation annealing in air atmosphere. Magnetization measurements indicated that the Zn1−xCuxO (x=0.05 and 0.07) nanowires exhibit room temperature ferromagnetism and the Zn0.93Cu0.07O nanowires annealed in vacuum reveals an enhancement of the ferromagnetism. X-ray diffraction pattern, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and Raman spectra measurements showed that all the samples possess a typical wurtzite structure and no other impurity phases were observed.