Ferromagnetic coupling of Fe3+-VO-Fe3+ polarons in Fe-doped ZnO

Abstract

Room temperature ferromagnetic Fe-doped ZnO with hexagonal wurtzite structure was synthesized by a hydrothermal method under 4 T high pulsed magnetic field. Detailed studies were carried out to survey the effect of magnetic field on morphological, structural and magnetic properties of samples. The results showed that the concentration of oxygen vacancies (VOs) and amount of Fe3+ doping in ZnO were improved due to the high magnetic field processing. It proposed that the inherent exchange interaction is mediated by magnetic ions (Fe3+) through VOs assist to produce bound magnetic polorans (BMPs), which is responsible for RTFM in Fe-doped ZnO matrix.