Ferromagnetic anisotropy in scandium-doped AlN hierarchical nanostructures

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Ferromagnetic anisotropy in scandium-doped AlN hierarchical nanostructures Ridong Cong1,2, Jianmin Wang1, Xiaoyao Wang1, Yufan Zhang1, Wanbing Lu1, Wei Zhao4, Qiushi Wang3,*, Xiaoyu Liu1,2,*, and Wei Yu1,2,* 1

National and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of New Energy Photoelectric Devices, College of Physics Science and Technology, Hebei University, Baoding 071002, People’s Republic of China 2 Hebei Key Laboratory of Optic-Electronic Information and Materials, College of Physics Science and Technology, Hebei University, Baoding 071002, People’s Republic of China 3 College of New Energy, Bohai University, Jinzhou 121013, People’s Republic of China 4 School of Science, Hebei University of Engineering, Handan 056038, People’s Republic of China

Received: 24 December 2019

ABSTRACT

Accepted: 19 March 2020

We experimentally fabricated uniformly distributed single-, double- and sixsided Sc-doped AlN (AlN:Sc) nanodendrites by a plasma-assisted direct current arc discharge method. The crystal structure, composition, morphological and microstructures were characterized, and the physical mechanisms governing the formation of AlN:Sc nanodendrites were examined. It was found that the morphology and the crystal orientation of the AlN nanodendrites can be controlled by tuning the N2 pressure. The incorporation of Sc induces native point defects in AlN that contribute to the growth of hierarchical structures and affect the room-temperature photoluminescence. The AlN:Sc nanodendrites exhibit room-temperature anisotropic ferromagnetism, and this is strongly depend on the orientation of the nanodendrites. This work provides a facile strategy to fabricate complex hierarchical AlN:Sc nanostructures with manipulated magnetic properties which may find promising applications in spintronic nanodevices.

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Springer Science+Business

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Introduction Aluminum nitride (AlN) has a hexagonal wurtzite structure and is an important wide band gap (6.2 eV) semiconductor material for modern semiconductor technology due to its great potential application in short-wavelength optoelectronics devices, high-

temperature/high-power electronics and field emitters [1–3]. Investigation on transition metal (TM)doped AlN shows room-temperature ferromagnetism (RTFM), which is advantageous for many of spintronic applications [4, 5]. In addition, doping TM is considered as an effective method to modify the optical properties of AlN, making AlN available for wideband operation from UV to infrared

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https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-020-04588-5

J Mater Sci

wavelengths by defects or dopants [6–8]. Therefore, large amounts of research work emerged in recent years focused on the optical and magnetic properties of the AlN nanostructures doped with different elements such as Mg, Si, Cr and rare earth [4, 9–12]. As a valuable dopant for AlN, scandium (Sc) doping has become an attractive approach because Sc atoms have non-clus