Copper ion implanted aluminum nitride dilute magnetic semiconductors (DMS) prepared by molecular beam epitaxy

Diluted magnetic semiconductor (DMS) AlN:Cu films were fabricated by implanting Cu+ ions into AlN thin films at various ion fluxes. AlN films were deposited on c-plane sapphire by molecular beam epitaxy followed by Cu+ ion implantation. The structural and magnetic characterization of the samples was performed through Rutherford backscattering and channeling spectrometry (RBS/C), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) and SQUID. Incorporation of copper into the AlN lattice was confirmed by RBS, while XRD revealed that no new phase was formed as a result of ion implantation. RBS also indicated formation of defects as a result of implantation process and the depth and degree of damage increased with an increase in ion fluence. Raman spectra showed only E2 (high) and A1 (LO) modes of wurtzite AlN crystal structure and confirmed that no secondary phases were formed. It was found that both Raman modes shift with Cu+ fluences, indicating that Cu ion may go to interstitial or substitutional sites resulting in distortion or damage of lattice. Although as implanted samples showed no magnetization, annealing of the samples resulted in appearance of room temperature ferromagnetism. The saturation magnetization increased with both the annealing temperature as well as with ion fluence. FC/ZFC measurements indicated that the ferromagnetic effect was not related with superparamagnetic phase formation. In spite, it was due to the formation of AlN based DMS material. The Curie temperature (TC) of the sample prepared at an ion fluence of 5 × 1015 cm−2 and an annealing temperature of 950 °C was found to lie above 340 K.