Investigations of cobalt and carbon codoping in gallium nitride for spintronic applications

Extensive theoretical investigations have been carried out to study the ferromagnetic properties of transition metal doped wurtzite GaN using the Tight Binding Linear Muffin-tin Orbital (TBLMTO) method within the density functional theory. The present calculation reveals ferromagnetism in cobalt doped GaN when one gallium is replaced by cobalt in a 3×3×2 supercell of GaN, which gives rise to a cobalt concentration of 2.77%. The system is half-metallic with a magnetic moment of 4.0μB. When Co is bonded with one carbon, there is a drastic decrease in magnetic moment and the system becomes metallic. When Co dimer is introduced via nitrogen which corresponds to the Co concentration of 5.5% the magnetic moment is 3.99μB and the system is half-metallic. Same trend is observed when Co is bonded via nitrogen with unequal distance. When cobalt dimer is formed via carbon, the moment becomes 2.95μB and it shows metallic character. For dimer via carbon with unequal distance, the moment is 3.0μB and the system becomes semiconductor. For higher percentage of cobalt dopant the system shows metallic character. C and Co doped GaN samples have been synthesized experimentally and characterized with X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, micro-Raman and superconducting quantum interface device measurements. The observed results are correlated with the theoretical studies. ► DFT theory studies on Co and C doped GaN. ► Synthesis and characterization of pure and codoped GaN. ► Correlation between theoretical and experimental results. ► Applications in the field of Spintronics.