Significant enhancement of ferromagnetism in Zn1-xCrxTe doped with iodine as an n-type dopant

The effect of additional doping of charge impurities was investigated in a ferromagnetic semiconductor Zn1-xCrxTe. It was found that the doping of iodine, which is expected to act as an n-type dopant in ZnTe, brought about a drastic enhancement of the ferromagnetism in Zn1-xCrxTe, while the grown films remained electrically insulating. In particular, at a fixed Cr composition of x=0.05, the ferromagnetic transition temperature TC increased up to 300 K at maximum due to the iodine doping from TC=30 K of the undoped counterpart, while the ferromagnetism disappeared due to the doping of nitrogen as a p-type dopant. The observed systematic correlation of ferromagnetism with the doping of charge impurities of both the p and n type, suggesting a key role of the position of Fermi level within the impurity d state, is discussed on the basis of the double-exchange interaction as a mechanism of ferromagnetism in this material.