Decoupled scenario between the conductive carriers and the ferromagnetism in epitaxial Zn{sub 0.85−x}Mg{sub x}Co{sub 0.15}O thin films

• Published in: Applied physics letters Vol. 105; no. 7
• Main Authors: Zhu, Dapeng, Liu, Guolei, Tian, Yufeng, Yan, Shishen, Cai, Li, Fu, Maoxiang, Zhang, Jie, Zhang, Kun, Ye, Shengtao, Li, Huanhuan, Hu, Shujun, Chen, Yanxue, Kang, Shishou, Dai, Youyong, Mei, Liangmo, Cao, Qiang, Department of Physics, Qufu Normal University, Qufu, Shandong 273165
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 18.08.2014
• Subjects: CARRIERS; COBALT COMPOUNDS; CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY; CORRELATIONS; ELECTRIC CONDUCTIVITY; FERROMAGNETISM; MAGNESIUM COMPOUNDS; MAGNETIZATION; MAGNETORESISTANCE; MOLECULAR BEAM EPITAXY; OXYGEN COMPOUNDS; PLASMA; SATURATION; SCATTERING; SPIN ORIENTATION; THIN FILMS; TUNNEL EFFECT; ZINC COMPOUNDS
• ISSN: 0003-6951; 1077-3118
• DOI: 10.1063/1.4893563

A series of Zn{sub 0.85−x}Mg{sub x}Co{sub 0.15}O (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.3) thin films were fabricated by plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy to investigate the correlation between the electrical transport properties and the ferromagnetism. It is observed that the saturation magnetization remains almost unchanged even though the resistivity of the Zn{sub 0.85−x}Mg{sub x}Co{sub 0.15}O films dramatically increases more than 6 orders with increasing Mg concentration. Moreover, the absence of detectable anomalous Hall effects and very small magnetoresistance in the films reveal the absence of spin polarization of conductive carriers and very weak spin-dependent scattering or tunneling processes. All these results suggest that the conductive carriers are decoupled with the ferromagnetism in the Zn{sub 0.85−x}Mg{sub x}Co{sub 0.15}O films.