Ion-irradiation-induced ferromagnetism in undoped ZnO thin films

We have introduced defects in ZnO epitaxial thin films by swift heavy Ag ion irradiation and investigated systematically their magnetic, electrical and optical properties. Oxygen annealed ZnO films are epitaxial single crystals that exhibit no long-range magnetic order. However, in this paper it is shown that room-temperature ferromagnetism (RTFM) can be introduced in a controlled manner in these films using ion irradiation and that the magnetization increases with ion dose. This qualitatively agrees with earlier studies which showed that RTFM could be induced in ZnO films through either vacuum thermal annealing or pulsed laser annealing below energy densities that lead to melting. Raman studies of the ion irradiated samples revealed dramatic changes in the vibration modes that correlated with increases in the carrier concentration, indicative of lattice disorder and defect creation. We compare these results with those observed in laser irradiated and vacuum annealed samples, and then discuss these findings in the context of defects and defect complexes created during the high-energy heavy ion irradiation process. We propose a unified mechanism to explain RTFM and n-type conductivity enhancements during irradiation, and laser and vacuum annealing. 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. on behalf of Acta Materialia Inc.