A new study discusses the electric and magnetic
characteristics of a material which could be used in spintronics
Materials belonging to the family of dilute magnetic oxides
(DMOs) — an oxide-based variant of the dilute magnetic semiconductors — are
good candidates for spintronics applications. This is the object of study for
Davide Sangalli of the Microelectronics and Microsystems Institute (IMM) at the
National Research Council (CNR), in Agrate Brianza, Italy, and colleagues. They
recently explored the effect of iron (Fe) doping on thin films of a material
called zirconia (ZrO2 oxide). For the first time, the authors bridged the gap
between the theoretical predictions and the experimental measurements of this
material, in a paper about to be published in EPJ B.