International Conference on Mathematics and Natural Sciences (ICMNS) November 29-30, 2006, Bandung-Indonesia

Sintering Time and Field Induced Dielectric Constant of Zn0.92Fe0.08O Compound

M. Diantoro, A. Purwanto Department of Physics, Faculty Of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Negeri Malang (UM), Jl. Surabaya 6, Malang 65145

Abstract
A series of Zn0.92Fe0.08O has been synthesized by means of solid state reaction at 1100 oC with dwelling time ranging from 2 to 10 hours with incrementally of 2 hours. The resulted samples were characterized their dielectric constant under magnetic field influence of 0.92, 1.66, 2.53, 3.15, 3.8, 4.6, 5.2, and 6.08 mT at room temperature. It was found that the dielectric constant exponentially down with increasing sintering time. While, on the other hand, magnetic field drastically change the exponential characteristic to anti-dip with maximum value always reached at around 6 hours sintering time. This is interesting since sintering time induced on their dielectric effect in magnitude nor their relationship pattern.

Keywords : sintering time, dielectric constant, magnetic field, (ZnFe)O I. Introduction

Recently, a growing effort is directed toward studies of semiconductor-magnetic nano structure because of the complementary properties of semiconductor and ferromagnetic material systems. These hybrid systems envisage some applications in optical modulators and insulators, in sensors and memories, as well as for computing using electron spins [1]. In such devices, the stray fields can control charge and spin dynamics in the semiconductor. At the same time, spin-polarized electrons in the metal can be injected into or across the semiconductor [2]. Furthermore, the ferromagnetic neighbors may affect semiconductor electronic states by the ferromagnetic proximity effect even under thermal equilibrium conditions. In the field of spintronics [3], diluted magnetic semiconductors (DMS) are worldwide under intense investigation. DMS are conventional semiconductors doped with transition metal (TM) or rare-earth ions which are diluted within the host matrix and ferromagnetically aligned via an indirect magnetic coupling [4]. The existence of DMS based on Mn doped p-type ZnO [1] and V, Ti, Fe, Co or Ni doped n-type ZnO [5,6] has been predicted by theory. It is then the important challenge of materials science to understand the ferromagnetism in these compounds and to develop functional semiconductor systems with the Curie temperatures TC exceeding comfortably the room temperature. Among other systems, ntype ZnO doped with Fe has been confirmed experimentally [4,7,8] to exhibit ferromagnetism at room temperature.

II. Experimental Procedures

The experimental procedure used in this study for the sample preparation is a standard solid sate reaction. A reagent grade ZnO (99.9%) and Fe (99.5%) powders were used as sintering material. A typical DMS of low Fe concentration [6,9] of about 0.08 was mixed with 0.92 at molar concentration of ZnO. The mixture was then ground well using Berlin mortar and pressed into a pellet. The pellet was placed in an alumina crucible and sintered at about 1100.oC for 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 hr in air at heating rates of 6 oC/min followed by furnace cooling. The sintered samples were trimmed in to a disk with dimension of about 10 mm and 4 mm in diameter and thickness respectively. The dielectric constant e were inferred from their capacitance values in which measured using C-meter AD 5822. The measurements were repeated for other samples in different magnetic fields parallel to their axis in 10 seconds

III. Result and Discussion

The resulted capacitance values from the C-meter measurements were converted using relation e = C/0.d/A. The capacitance C is measured from the experiment, vacuum electric permittivity 0 is constant, while d and A are assigned for sample thickness and areas enclosure respectively. The resulted dielectric constant in

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International Conference on Mathematics and Natural Sciences (ICMNS) November 29-30, 2006, Bandung-Indonesia

zero field and in field following the above calculation is presented in Table 1.
Table 1. Dielectric constant of (Zn,Fe)O samples sintered at various dwelling time at various magnetic field. H e (mT) 2(h) 4(h) 6(h) 8(h) 10(h) 0 0,92 1,66 2,53 3,15 3,85 4,63 5,22 6,08 732,57 273,96 279,29 284,63 288,18 289,97 291,75 295,30 299,75 479,02 354,76 360,28 373,14 378,66 398,88 415,42 430,13 457,70 394,85 378,01 408,46 422,80 433,54 498,04 521,33 580,45 594,78 307,00 264,37 267,68 274,29 285,85 289,16 299,07 302,38 308,98 245,12 227,64 249,49 278,63 311,41 340,55 346,01 351,48 358,76

The zero filed dielectric constant of Fe doped ZnO compound is shown in Fig.1. It is revealed that increasing sintering time decreasing exponentially the dielectric constant e(0) of the samples. Further investigation we used modified Avrami equation [10]. Since in this case we found a degradation not phase formation then equation write as 1-x(t), where x(t) = 1-exp(-ktn) is Avramis equation. Using this anti-phase formation, Fe dope ZnO fall to n =1 k =1. This phenomena give rise that ubstituting Zn by Fe is not in line, at least the solubility limit is low. This tell us that the phase formation of (Zn1-xFex)O is very hard since they do not match in radius as well as in valence and in magnetic state.

The relation of in-field dielectric constants, e(H) with respect to their sintering time as shown in Fig. 2 is clearly distinct to the in zero field one. The effect of magnetic field is drastically changing the dielectric constantsintering time e(t) behavior. A comparably weak magnetic field suppressed e from 732.56 down to 273.96 for 2 hours sintering time. The suppression of e is weaker by increasing t up to the optimum value of sintering time reach at 6 hours. Further increasing the sintering time may decrease e(H) monotonously back almost to their initial value. This pattern is also hold for higher magnetic field applied. We also noted that, increasing magnetic field affect only on the magnitude of e not to their pattern e(H) t relationship. To elaborate more to the magnetic field effect the same data replot as indicated in Fig. 3. Although the polycrystal samples do not show anisotropy behaviour, it is enough for us to assigned that ferromagnetic Fe does incorporate in the system.

Fig. 2. Effect of sintering time to the dielectric constant at various magnetic fields. Symbols are data while solid lines are guide to the eyes

Fig. 1. Evolution of decreasing dielectric constant with respect to increasing sintering time in (Zn,Fe)O compound. Symbol assigned data while the solid line () is a fitting function using decreasing Avrami equation.

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International Conference on Mathematics and Natural Sciences (ICMNS) November 29-30, 2006, Bandung-Indonesia

V. References
1. Dietl, T., Ferromagnetic Semiconductors, Semicond. Sci. Technol. 17 (2002) 377392 2. JohnsonM 2002 Semicond. Sci. Technol. 17 298 andreferences therein 3. Wolf, ,S.A. D.D. Awschalom, R.A. Buhrman, J.M. Daughton, S. von Molnr, M.L. Roukes, A.Y. Chtchelkanova, D.M. Treger, Science 294 (2001)1488 4. K. Potzger, S. Zhou, H. Reuther, A. Mcklich, F. Eichhorn, N. Schell, W. Skorupa, M. Helm, J. Fassbender, T. Herrmannsdrfer1 and T.P. Papageorgiou, Fe Implanted Ferromagnetic ZnO, Annual Report IIM 2005, FZR-448 5. K. Sato, H. Katayama-Yoshida, Semicond. Sci. Tech. 17 (2002) 367 6. Z. Jin et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 78, 3824 (2001). 7. C. Bundesmann, N. Ashkenov, M. Schubert, D. Spemann, T. Butz, E. M. Kaidashev, M. Lorenz, and M. Grundmann, Appl. Phys. 83, 10 (2003) 1974-1976 8. J.H. Shim, T. Hwang, S. Lee, J.H. Park, S.-J. Han, Y.H. Jeong, Appl. Phys. Lett. 86(2005) 082503 9. M.Venkatesan, C.B. Fitzgerald, J.G. Lunney, J.M.D. Coey, Phys. Rev. Lett. 93 (2004) 177206 10. Rao, C.N.R dan K.J. Rao, Phase transition in solids, Mc-graw-Hll Inc Book 11. . zgr, Ya. I. Alivov, C. Liu, A. Teke, M. A. Reshchikov, S. Doan, V. Avrutin, S.-J. Cho, and H. Morko. A comprehensive review of ZnO materials and devices, J. Appl. Phys.98, 041301 (2005) 12. Branislav K. Nikoli and Satofumi Souma, Phys Rev B 71, 195328 (2005)

Fig. 3. Effect of magnetic field to the dielectric constant at various sintering time. Symbols are data while solid lines are guide to the eyes

It is known that the nature of the magnetic state of the system is come from iron. Magnetic alignment of Fe3+ or Fe2+ [4] by external field activate at least the spin-spin nearest neighbor interaction so that the magnetic and electrical atmosphere also change. A typical mechanism of indirect exchange interaction has also discussed elsewhere [1,4,11]. This situation give rise the change of polarisability that change the local dielectricity. For more detail discussion of this field can be found in the reference e.g [12]. From Fig.3 we found clearly that increasing field result increase in e as well. Comparing to Fig. 2 we found that 6 hours sintering time indicate an optimum to form (Zn,Fe)O phase.

IV. Conclusion
In conclusion, we have obtained in this work a comprehensive set of Fe doped ZnO phase formation by means of sintering time and effect of external field to their dielectric constant. In zero field we found that Fe substitution to Zn site give rise to decrease the dielectric constant exponentially. The situation can be fitted also using anti phase formation of modified Avramis equation. Applying an external field decrease drastically in magnitude of Ke at the same sintering time until reaching a maximum value at 6 hour sintering time. Magnetic field change also the Ke-t pattern relationship compare to zero field one. Interestingly, increasing magnetic field H does not change the Ke(H) t but only their magnitude.

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