文章基本信息

标题：Heat-Treatment-Induced Switching of Magnetic States in the Doped Polar Semiconductor Ge1−xMnxTe
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作者：M. Kriener ; T. Nakajima ; Y. Kaneko 等
期刊名称：Scientific Reports
电子版ISSN：2045-2322
出版年度：2016
卷号：6
期号：1
DOI：10.1038/srep25748
语种：English
出版社：Springer Nature
摘要：Cross-control of a material property - manipulation of a physical quantity (e.g., magnetisation) by a nonconjugate field (e.g., electrical field) - is a challenge in fundamental science and also important for technological device applications. It has been demonstrated that magnetic properties can be controlled by electrical and optical stimuli in various magnets. Here we find that heat-treatment allows the control over two competing magnetic phases in the Mn-doped polar semiconductor GeTe. The onset temperatures Tc of ferromagnetism vary at low Mn concentrations by a factor of five to six with a maximum Tc ≈ 180 K, depending on the selected phase. Analyses in terms of synchrotron x-ray diffraction and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy indicate a possible segregation of the Mn ions, which is responsible for the high-Tc phase. More importantly, we demonstrate that the two states can be switched back and forth repeatedly from either phase by changing the heat-treatment of a sample, thereby confirming magnetic phase-change-memory functionality.