Ferromagnetism in ZnO doped with Co by ion implantation

The importance of doping ZnO with magnetic ions is associated with the fact that this oxide is a good candidate for the formation of a magnetic-diluted semiconductor. Most of the studies reported in Co-doped ZnO were carried out in thin films, but the understanding of the modification of the magnetic behaviour due to doping demands the study of single-crystalline samples. In this work, ZnO single crystals were doped at room temperature with Co by ion implantation with fluences ranging between 2×1016 and 1×1017 ions cm−2 and implantation energy of 100 keV. As implanted samples show a superparamagnetic behaviour attributed to the formation of Co clusters, room temperature ferromagnetism is attained after annealing at 800 °C, but no magnetoresistance was detected in the temperature range from 10 to 300 K.