Electrical and Magneto-Transport Properties of Gd-Doped In2O3 Thin Films Prepared by Pulsed Laser Deposition

Dilute Magnetic Semiconductors (DIMS) are a rare group of promising materials that utilize both the electronic charge - a characteristic of semiconductor materials - and the electronic spin - a characteristic of magnetic materials. Oxide based DMS show promise of ferromagnetism (FM) at room temperature. It has been found that doping metal oxides such as ZnO, TiO2, and In2O3 with magnetic ions such as Fe, Co, Mn, and Cr produces DMS, which exhibit FM above room temperature. In2O3, a transparent opto-electronic material, is an interesting prospect for spintronics due to a unique combination of magnetic, electrical, and optical properties. High quality thin films of rare earth magnetic gadolinium (Gd) doped oxide-based DMS materials have been grown by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique on various substrates such as single crystal of sapphire (001) and quartz under suitable growth conditions of substrate temperature and oxygen pressure in the PLD chamber. The effect of rare earth magnetic doping on the structural and electro - magnetic properties of these films has been studied using Raman Spectroscopy, X-Ray Diffraction, Scanning Electron Microscopy, and Magneto - Transport. An X-ray diffraction study reveals that these films are single phase and highly oriented. Characteristic Raman peaks typical of indium oxide are observed at 496 mid 627 cm(-1). We have observed high in magneto-resistance (similar to 18 %) at a relatively small field of 1.3 Tesla for the films with 10 % gadolinium.