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Phys. Rev. B 73, 235335 (2006) [5 pages]

Semiconducting ground state of GdN thin films

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S. Granville1, B. J. Ruck1,*, F. Budde1, A. Koo1, D. J. Pringle1, F. Kuchler1, A. R. H. Preston1, D. H. Housden1, N. Lund1, A. Bittar2,*, G. V. M. Williams2,*, and H. J. Trodahl1,*
1School of Chemical and Physical Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand
2Industrial Research Ltd, P.O. Box 31-310, Lower Hutt, New Zealand

Received 14 March 2006; revised 8 May 2006; published 20 June 2006

We report the growth of GdN thin films and a study of their structure and magnetic and conducting properties. It is demonstrated that they are semiconducting at ambient temperature with nitrogen vacancies the dominant dopant. The films are ferromagnetic below 68 K, and a significant narrowing of the band gap is signaled by more than a doubling of its conductivity. The conductivity in the low-temperature ferromagnetic state remains typical of a doped semiconductor, supporting the view that this material is semiconducting in its ground state and that no metal-insulator transition occurs at the Curie temperature.

© 2006 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.73.235335
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevB.73.235335
PACS:
73.61.−r, 71.20.Eh, 71.27.+a, 75.30.−m

*Also at MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, Victoria University of Wellington, Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand.

 
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