Title: Ferromagnetism in a diamond-like carbon film after nickel implantation

Authors: Prasant Gupta; Grant Williams; Andreas Markwitz

Addresses: School of Chemical and Physical Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand; Department of Materials and Air, GNS Science, P.O. Box 31312, Lower Hutt 5010, New Zealand; The MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand ' School of Chemical and Physical Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand; The MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand ' Department of Materials and Air, GNS Science, P.O. Box 31312, Lower Hutt 5010, New Zealand; The MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand

Abstract: Mass selective ion beam deposited diamond-like carbon (DLC) films were implanted with Ni⁺ ions at 30 keV with a fluence of 3.6 × 10¹⁶ atoms cm⁻². The peak concentration of nickel in the implanted film was calculated to be 12.5% at an implantation depth of ∼30 nm into the DLC film. Raman measurements showed that the integrated intensity of the D peak at ∼1370 cm⁻¹ divided by the G peak at ∼1560 cm⁻¹ increases after ion implantation, which indicates that the implanted films are more graphitic. The implanted film shows ferromagnetic order at room temperature. However the saturation moment of the implanted film increased significantly when the measurement temperature was lowered. This may suggest that implantation leads to a dilute ferromagnetic semiconductor although more research is required.

Keywords: diamond-like carbon; DLC films; dilute ferromagnetic semiconductors; magnetism; ion implantation; mass selective ion beam deposition; MSIBD; Raman spectroscopy; Rutherford backscattering; ferromagnetism; nickel implantation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNT.2017.082449

International Journal of Nanotechnology, 2017 Vol.14 No.1/2/3/4/5/6, pp.100 - 107

Published online: 24 Feb 2017 *

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