Half-metallic p-electron ferromagnetism in alkaline earth doped AlAs: A first-principles calculation

We investigated the p-electron ferromagnetism in alkaline earth doped AlAs by using first-principles calculations. The modified Becke and Johnson potential is used to give a much more reasonable semiconductor gap. Our results demonstrate that ferromagnetic phase is always energetically favorable than the antiferromagnetic and nonmagnetic ones for all considered compounds. Magnetic moments are mainly attributed to the partly filled anionic p states. Especially, half-metallic ferromagnetism has been obtained for Ca- and Sr-doped AlAs, which may be promising for spintronic applications. The calculated results are also useful for understanding of the origin of ferromagnetism in diluted magnetic semiconductors. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3692591]