We report persistent photoconductivity in Mg-doped GdN thin films grown by molecular beam epitaxy. Temperature-dependent measurements were carried out in the time and frequency domains to probe the nature of Mg impurities in GdN. The results reveal an initial fast decay followed by a slow persistent photoconductivity. The magnitude of the photoconductivity as well as the characteristic fast- and slow-decay times was found to decrease systematically with increasing the Mg-doping level. Our experimental results suggest that Mg impurities in epitaxial GdN thin films act as acceptor-like centres. Interestingly they also show that the incorporation of Mg result in a significant decrease in the concentration of nitrogen vacancies, as is demonstrated also to be in agreement with an ab initio calculation.
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21 March 2018
Research Article|
March 19 2018
Experimental and ab initio study of Mg doping in the intrinsic ferromagnetic semiconductor GdN
C.-M. Lee;
C.-M. Lee
1
School of Chemical and Physical Sciences and MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, Victoria University of Wellington
, PO Box 600, Wellington 6140, New Zealand
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J. Schacht
;
J. Schacht
1
School of Chemical and Physical Sciences and MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, Victoria University of Wellington
, PO Box 600, Wellington 6140, New Zealand
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H. Warring
;
H. Warring
1
School of Chemical and Physical Sciences and MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, Victoria University of Wellington
, PO Box 600, Wellington 6140, New Zealand
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H. J. Trodahl
;
H. J. Trodahl
1
School of Chemical and Physical Sciences and MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, Victoria University of Wellington
, PO Box 600, Wellington 6140, New Zealand
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B. J. Ruck
;
B. J. Ruck
1
School of Chemical and Physical Sciences and MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, Victoria University of Wellington
, PO Box 600, Wellington 6140, New Zealand
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S. Vézian
;
S. Vézian
2
Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, CRHEA
, rue B. Gregory, 06560 Valbonne, France
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N. Gaston
;
N. Gaston
3
Department of Physics and MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, The University of Auckland
, Auckland, New Zealand
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F. Natali
F. Natali
1
School of Chemical and Physical Sciences and MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, Victoria University of Wellington
, PO Box 600, Wellington 6140, New Zealand
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J. Appl. Phys. 123, 115106 (2018)
Article history
Received:
December 19 2017
Accepted:
March 01 2018
Citation
C.-M. Lee, J. Schacht, H. Warring, H. J. Trodahl, B. J. Ruck, S. Vézian, N. Gaston, F. Natali; Experimental and ab initio study of Mg doping in the intrinsic ferromagnetic semiconductor GdN. J. Appl. Phys. 21 March 2018; 123 (11): 115106. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5020081
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