Ferromagnetism in indium manganese arsenide magnetic semiconductor thin films deposited by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy

The structure-property relationships of (In,Mn)As magnetic semiconductor thin films have been investigated to elucidate the mechanism of ferromagnetism and to assess its viability for use in spintronic device applications. Single phase, epitaxial (In,Mn)As films were deposited for the first time using atmospheric pressure metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy. The microstructure and phase composition of these films were determined using X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and extended x-ray absorption fine structure measurements.; Magnetic properties of the films were examined using superconducting quantum interference device magnetometery. Room temperature ferromagnetism was observed in single-phase In1-xMn xAs films with x ≤ 0.10. Magnetization measurements indicated that these (In,Mn)As samples had a transition temperature of 298--333 K. The Curie temperature was effectively independent of Mn concentration over the range of 1--10%. The temperature dependent magnetization along with the magnitude of the saturation magnetization and microstructural analysis indicated that the source of the high-temperature ferromagnetism in single-phase films is not attributable to MnAs nanoprecipitates.; The Curie temperatures for these films are nearly constant for hole concentrations of 8 x 1017--1.6 x 1018 cm -3. In addition, the hole concentration is at least two orders of magnitude smaller than what is required under the conventional hole-mediated theory of ferromagnetism to obtain room-temperature ferromagnetism. Consequently, this model in its current form is not sufficient to describe the ferromagnetism in (In,Mn)As deposited using MOVPE.; A model based upon interacting atomic scale ferromagnetic clusters was developed. The ferromagnetic coupling between these clusters may be a hole-mediated mechanism. This model of interacting ferromagnetic clusters was very successful in describing both the temperature and field dependence of the magnetization. In addition, this model is able to explain the high Curie temperatures and the Mn concentration independence of the Curie temperature in these (In,Mn)As films.; This work has shown that the MOVPE deposited (In,Mn)As films are significantly different than those obtained by molecular beam epitaxy. The higher deposition temperature has been shown to significantly improve Mn solubility and allow for the formation of atomic scale clusters as predicted by recent theoretical calculations. These clusters stabilize the ferromagnetism to much higher temperatures than was previously observed in (In,Mn)As with random Mn substitution.