Magnetic properties of high Li doped ZnO sol–gel thin films

•Ferromagnetism in high Li doped ZnO films.•Magnetic properties observed by Guoy's and VSM method.•The rod and wrinkle like structures are observed from the surface of the films.•Band gap of ZnO does not get altered by high Li doping.

Undoped and Li doped ZnO thin films were deposited on a glass substrate using the sol–gel dip coating method. The films were prepared at 5 mol.% and 10 mol.% of Li doped ZnO at 550 °C annealing temperature and the deposited films were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), microscopic studies, Gouy's method, vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) and UV–visible spectroscopy. All the deposited thin films had a hexagonal wurtzite structure with polycrystalline grains at random. Primarily magnetic properties of pure and Li doped ZnO films were observed by Guoy's method which depicted Dia and Para magnetic behavior at room temperature. VSM measurement reveals a coercivity of 97.7 Oe in the films. An inverse relative ferromagnetism was perceived in Li doped ZnO films which had an average transmission of <90%.

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