Antiferromagnetic interactions in single crystalline Zn1-xCoxO thin films

Abstract

In a rather contradictory situation regarding magnetic data on Co-doped ZnO, we have succeeded in fabricating high-quality single crystalline Zn1-xCoxO (x=0.003-0.07) thin films. This gives us the possibility, for the first time, to examine the it intrinsic magnetic properties of ZnO:Co at a quantitative level and therefore to address several unsolved problems, the major one being the nature of the Co-Co interaction in the ZnO structure.