Magnetization process of the insulating ferromagnetic semiconductor (Al,Fe)Sb

Abstract

We have studied the magnetization process of the new insulating ferromagnetic semiconductor (Al,Fe)Sb by means of x-ray magnetic circular dichroism. For an optimally doped sample with 10% Fe, a magnetization was found to rapidly increase at low magnetic fields and to saturate at high magnetic fields at room temperature, well above the Curie temperature of 40 K. We attribute this behavior to the existence of nanoscale Fe-rich ferromagnetic domains acting as superparamagnets. By fitting the magnetization curves using the Langevin function representing superparamagnetism plus the paramagnetic linear function, we estimated the average magnetic moment of the nanoscale ferromagnetic domain to be 300-400µ B , and the fraction of Fe atoms participating in the nano-scale ferromagnetism to be ∼50%. Such behavior was also reported for (In,Fe)As:Be and Ge:Fe, and seems to be a universal characteristic of the Fe-doped ferromagnetic semiconductors. Further Fe doping up to 14% led to the weakening of the ferromagnetism probably because antiferromagnetic superexchange interaction between nearest-neighbor Fe-Fe pairs becomes dominant.

Densities of states in Fe-doped III-V semiconductors: a first-principles study

“…Considering the low concentrations of Fe atoms doped into the host semiconductors, it appears necessary to think about the inhomogeneous distribution of Fe atoms on the nanoscale, or the spinodal nanodecomposition [6], because both superexchange and double-exchange interactions are short-ranged. In fact, previous XMCD measurements on (In,Fe)As:Be [30] and (Al,Fe)Sb [38] thin films grown by the molecular beam epitaxy methods revealed that there exist nanoscale ferromagnetic domains even at room temperature much above the macroscopic T C , the origin of which was attributed to the nanoscale Fe concentration fluctuation. Furthermore, the nanoscale Fe-rich lamellae-like structures were recently observed in (In,Fe)As thin films prepared by the pulsed laser melting method [39].…”