Synthesis of Zn0.95Cr0.05O DMS by co-precipitation and ceramic methods: Structural and magnetization studies

Transitional metal ions-substituted ZnO are recently explored for SPINTRONICS applications. Synthesis of single-phase oxide ‘diluted magnetic semiconductors’ (DMS) is a must to explore the magnetic properties arising due to the strong sp–d exchange interaction. The synthesis route plays a vital role in this aspect. In this work, we have prepared Zn0.95Cr0.05O by using the co-precipitation method and also the standard ceramic method and optimized the conditions to obtain the single-phase compound. X-ray diffraction measurements were done on Zn0.95Cr0.05O annealed and sintered at various temperatures. Comparing these results, we conclude that the co-precipitation method is more convenient for obtaining single-phase compound by the relatively low temperature processing of the precipitated hydroxides. Pelleted sample examined for its magnetic property using a vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) indicated ferromagnetic-like behavior at 300 K and a spin-glass state at 77 K.