Increased room temperature ferromagnetism in Co-doped tetrahedral perovskite niobates

Yi Zhou; Qing He; Fei Zhou; Xingqi Liao; Yong Liu; Zhonghong Lai; Mingqing Liao; Tianyi Han; Yudong Huang; Jingchuan Zhu

doi:10.1098/rsos.210121

Increased room temperature ferromagnetism in Co-doped tetrahedral perovskite niobates

R Soc Open Sci. 2021 Oct 6;8(10):210121. doi: 10.1098/rsos.210121. eCollection 2021 Oct.

Authors

Yi Zhou¹, Qing He¹, Fei Zhou^{1

2}, Xingqi Liao¹, Yong Liu^{1

3}, Zhonghong Lai⁴, Mingqing Liao¹, Tianyi Han¹, Yudong Huang², Jingchuan Zhu^{1

3

5}

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, 150001 Harbin, People's Republic of China.
² MIIT Key Laboratory of Critical Materials Technology for New Energy Conversion and Storage, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, 150001 Harbin, People's Republic of China.
³ National Key Laboratory for Precision Hot Processing of Metals, Harbin Institute of Technology, 150001 Harbin, People's Republic of China.
⁴ Center of Analysis and Measurement, Harbin Institute of Technology, 150001 Harbin, People's Republic of China.
⁵ National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Advanced Composites in Special Environments, Harbin Institute of Technology, 150001 Harbin, People's Republic of China.

Abstract

Dilute magnetic semiconductors (DMSs), such as (In, Mn)As and (Ga, Mn)As prototypes, are limited to III-V semiconductors with Curie temperatures (T _c) far from room temperature, thereby hindering their wide application. Here, one kind of DMS based on perovskite niobates is reported. BaM _x Nb_(1-x)O_3-δ (M = Fe, Co) powders are prepared by the composite-hydroxide-mediated method. The addition of M elements endows BaM _x Nb_(1-x)O_3-δ with local ferromagnetism. The tetragonal BaCo _x Nb_(1-x)O_3-δ nanocrystals can be obtained by Co doping, which shows strong saturation magnetization (M _sat) of 2.22 emu g^-1, a remnant magnetization (M _r) of 0.084 emu g^-1 and a small coercive field (H _c) of 167.02 Oe at room temperature. The ab initio calculations indicate that Co doping could lead to a 64% local spin polarization at the Fermi level (E _F) with net spin DOS of 0.89 electrons eV^-1, this result shows the possibility of maintaining strong ferromagnetism at room temperature. In addition, the trade-off effect between the defect band absorption and ferromagnetic properties of BaM _x Nb_(1-x)O_3-δ is verified experimentally and theoretically.

Keywords: BaNbO3; perovskite niobates; room temperature ferromagnetism.

Associated data

figshare/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5641683
Dryad/10.5061/dryad.f4qrfj6wd