Spinodal nanodecomposition in semiconductors doped with transition metals

Abstract

The occurrence of high-temperature ferromagnetism in transition metal semiconductors holds promise for devices with spintronic functionalities. This review focuses on transition metal aggregation process, which leads to random patterns of high-temperature material doped beyond the solubility limit. A computational description of nanodecomposition and the relevant experimental results are presented for a range of semiconductor compounds. The correlation of high-temperature ferromagnetism with spinodal nanodecomposition points to promising nanotechnology utilizing materials with transition metal rich nanoclusters coherently embedded within semiconducting hosts.