Effect of In and N dopants on the structural and magnetic properties of ZnO:Mn thin films

• In and N doped thin ZnO:Mn films were fabricated.
• All samples possess typical wurtzite structure and have no other impurity phase.
• Both Mn doped and Mn–In codoped ZnO films show paramagnetic behavior.
• Room-temperature ferromagnetism in ZnO:Mn + N was observed.
• Magnetic interactions were also studied by GGA + U.

In this paper, indium (In) and nitrogen (N) doped ZnO:Mn thin films were fabricated and their structural and magnetic properties were investigated. X-ray diffraction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements show that the samples possess typical wurtzite structure and have no other impurity phase. Magnetic measurements reveal that both Mn mono-doped and Mn–In codoped ZnO films show paramagnetic behavior, while room temperature ferromagnetism is achieved in weak p-type ZnO:Mn films by codoping with N. First-principles calculations further indicate that N codoping can change the ground state of ZnO:Mn system from antiferromagnetic to ferromagnetic while the Mn–In codoped ZnO is favored antiferromagnetic in energy. Therefore, N codoping is expected to be a promising technique to realize ferromagnetic ZnO:Mn semiconductors with high Curie temperature.