Room temperature ferromagnetism was observed in n-type Fe-doped In2O3 thin films deposited on c-cut sapphire substrates by pulsed laser deposition. Structure, magnetism, composition, and transport studies indicated that Fe occupied the In sites of the In2O3 lattice rather than formed any metallic Fe or other magnetic impurity phases. Magnetic moments of films were proved to be intrinsic and showed to have a strong dependence on the carrier densities, which depended on the Fe concentration and its valence state as well as oxygen pressure.

Soft/hard bilayers consisting of a FeAu layer with different thicknesses and a 20nm L10-FePt layer have been fabricated by magnetron sputtering and postannealing. FeAu soft layer not only can promote the ordering degree of FePt layer because of the small lattice mismatch between them and the diffusion of Au atoms into FePt boundaries, but also can reduce the coercivity due to the soft/hard exchange coupling. The results of x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy indicate that a graded interface is formed in the FeAu/FePt bilayer after annealing, which is beneficial to reduce the pinning field. The magnetization reversal in the FeAu/FePt exchange-spring media occurs by the nucleation and propagation of a domain wall from soft layer into hard layer.

Zn0.97Cu0.03O films were prepared by pulsed-laser deposition on c-cut sapphire substrates under various conditions in order to investigate the growth-dependent properties of the films. All the films exhibit room temperature ferromagnetism. Samples deposited at low temperature and low pressure show large saturation magnetization Ms. Moreover, the enhancement of Ms was observed in films annealed both in vacuum and in Zn vapor. However, postannealing in air led to the remarkable reduction of ferromagnetism. The results show that the itinerant electrons introduced by oxygen-deficient or Zn-rich atmospheres may play a significant role in room temperature ferromagnetism observed in this ZnCuO dilute magnetic semiconductor. It is consistent with carrier-induced ferromagnetism. The magnetization strongly depends on the appearance of free carriers and is relatively insensitive to whether they arose from VO or/and Zni.

Films of ZnO doped with magnetic ions Mn and Co and, in some cases, with Al have been fabricated with a very wide range of carrier densities. Ferromagnetic behavior is observed in both insulating and metallic films, but not when the carrier density is intermediate. Insulating films exhibit variable range hopping at low temperatures and are ferromagnetic at room temperature due to the interaction of the localized spins with static localized states. The magnetism is quenched when carriers in the localized states become mobile. In the metallic (degenerate semiconductor) range, robust ferromagnetism reappears together with very strong magneto-optic signals and room temperature anomalous Hall data. This demonstrates the polarization of the conduction bands and indicates that, when ZnO is doped into the metallic regime, it behaves as a genuine magnetic semiconductor.

Pulsed laser deposition is a very promising experimental technique for growing layers of nanoscale thickness. In this paper, the growth of a perovskite structured film grown on a perovskite substrate is simulated using the Monte Carlo procedure and LaMnO3 is taken as an example. In the model, we consider the motion of the La and Mn atoms, and assume the oxygen atoms follow the metal atoms. The quality of the film is controlled by three parameters: namely, the temperature of the substrate, the kinetic energy of the atoms, and the average coverage of each pulse. The simulated results show that the quality of the films is strongly dependent on the three parameters. We analyzed the composition of the films layer by layer and find an interesting phenomenon: if the deposition conditions are not optimal, the fraction of wrong atoms fractional mismatch presents odd-even staggering as the number of deposited atom layers increases.