Electrical and magnetic properties of cold compacted iron-doped zinc sulfide nanoparticles synthesized by wet chemical method

Iron-doped (1–5%) zinc sulfide nanocrystals were synthesized with sizes ranging from 2 to 4 nm. Resistivity measurements were carried out on cold compacted specimens over the temperature range 313–472 K. A resistivity decrease of about 10 orders of magnitude was observed as compared to that of ZnS samples. The data analysis showed that conduction occurred by a small polaron hopping mechanism between Fe2+ and Fe3+ ions concentrated at the nanocrystal interfaces. Low temperature magnetization studies indicated ferromagnetic behaviour arising out of a one-dimensional magnetic system with antiparallel spin alignment.