There has been considerable recent interest in the design of diluted magnetic semiconductors, with a particular focus on the exploration of different semiconductor hosts. Among these, the oxide-based diluted magnetic semiconductors are attracting increasing attention, following reports of room temperature ferromagnetism in anatase TiO 2 and wurtzite ZnO doped with a range of transition metal ions. In this review we summarize the current status of oxide-based diluted magnetic semiconductors, and discuss the influence of growth method, substrate choice, and temperature on the microstructure and subsequent magnetic properties of thin films. We outline the experimental conditions that promote large magnetization and high ferromagnetic Curie temperature. Finally, we review the proposed mechanisms for the experimentally observed ferromagnetism and compare the predictions to the range of available data.

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We report first-principles density functional calculations of the polarizations, piezoelectric stress constants, and elastic constants for the II-VI oxides MgO, ZnO, and CdO in the wurtzite structure. Using our pseudopotential selfinteraction corrected implementation of density functional theory, we obtain polarization values of ÿ0.060, ÿ0.022, and ÿ0.10 C/m 2 , and piezoelectric constants, e 33 (e 31 ) of 1.64 (ÿ0.58), 1.34 (ÿ0.57), and 1.67 (ÿ0.48) C/m 2 for structurally relaxed MgO (with its in-plane lattice parameter fixed to that calculated for ZnO), ZnO, and CdO, respectively. The large polarization gradients between the end-point compounds in the MgO-ZnO-CdO system augur well for the production of large internal fields in ZnO-based polarization field effect transistors.

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