Oxidized Mn:Ge magnetic semiconductor: Observation of anomalous Hall effect and large magnetoresistance

We report on the structural and magneto-transport properties of the as-grown and oxidized Mn:Ge magnetic semiconductors. Based on X-ray diffraction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results, the samples annealed at 650 and 700 °C became fully oxidized and the chemical binding energies of Mn was found to be Mn3O4. Thus, the system became Mn3O4 clusters embedded in Ge1−yOy. The as-grown sample showed positive linear Hall effect and negligible negative magnetoresistance (MR), which trend remained for the sample annealed up to 550 °C. Interestingly, for the samples annealed at above 650 °C, we observed the anomalous Hall effect around 45 K and the giant positive MR, which are respectively 59.2% and 78.5% at 7 kOe annealed at 650 °C and 700 °C.