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Semiconducting ground state of GdN thin films

2006; American Physical Society; Volume: 73; Issue: 23 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1103/physrevb.73.235335

1550-235X

Simon Granville, B. J. Ruck, F. Budde, Annette Koo, Daniel Pringle, Florian Küchler, A. R. H. Preston, D. H. Housden, Nat J. Lund, A. Bittar, G. V. M. Williams, H. J. Trodahl,

Rare-earth and actinide compounds

We report the growth of $\mathrm{GdN}$ thin films and a study of their structure and magnetic and conducting properties. It is demonstrated that they are semiconducting at ambient temperature with nitrogen vacancies the dominant dopant. The films are ferromagnetic below $68\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{K}$, and a significant narrowing of the band gap is signaled by more than a doubling of its conductivity. The conductivity in the low-temperature ferromagnetic state remains typical of a doped semiconductor, supporting the view that this material is semiconducting in its ground state and that no metal-insulator transition occurs at the Curie temperature.