Room temperature diluted magnetic semiconductor synthesized by dual beam laser deposition

Diluted magnetic semiconductor Co-doped ZnO film has been synthesized by a dual beam pulsed laser deposition method. The magnetic, electrical, and optical properties of the Zn0.985Co0.015O0.67 film are studied in this paper. The film shows ferromagnetic behavior with a coercivity of about 300 Oe at room temperature, and semiconductor behavior with carrier concentration of 2.2×1018 cm-3, and a resistivity of 102 mΩ cm. Structural investigations indicated that the film has similar lattice constants to that of ZnO. It is shown that the film exhibits excellent optical properties with a band gap energy of 3.31 eV, which is close to that of ZnO. The origins of the magnetism are also discussed.