Ferromagnetism in Insulating, Doped Diluted Magnetic Semiconductors

Abstract

We report results of a Monte Carlo study of doped, diluted magnetic semiconductors in the low carrier density (insulating) regime. We find that the system undergoes a transition from a paramagnet at high temperatures to a ferromagnet at low temperatures. However, in strong contrast to uniform systems, disorder effects dominate the entire collective behavior, leading to very unconventional properties such as (1) magnetization curves that cannot be described by theories based on critical fluctuations, or on spin wave analysis over any significant fraction of the phase diagram; (2) a large peak in susceptibilty well below the ordering temperature; and (3) specific heat curves that point out the inadequacy of a classical Heisenberg model for spin-5/2 Mn ions. A picture of percolating magnetic polarons appears to describe the data well, and leads to a prescription for correcting the unphysical results of the classical continuous spin model in terms of a discrete vector model.