Magnetism in Non-Traditional Materials

Abstract

Using the DOE support we have shown the following:• We performed a systematic microscopic investigation of two completely dissimilar materials (namely, ZnO and rhombohedral-C 60 polymers) exhibiting ferromagnetism in the presence of defects, and showed that this new phenomena has a common origin and the mechanism responsible can be used as a powerful tool for inducing and tailoring magnetic features in systems which are not magnetic otherwise. Based on our findings we proposed a general recipe for developing ferromagnetism in new materials of great technological interest. Our results support the role of complimentary pairs of defects in inducing magnetism in otherwise non-magnetic materials belonging to two widely differing classes with no apparent correlation between them. In both classes, ferromagnetism is found to be enhanced when the two kinds of defects form structures (pathways) of alternating effective donor and acceptor crystal sites leading to the development of electron charge and spin density like waves.