Great influence of the oxygen vacancies on the ferromagnetism in the Co-doped ZnO films

The ZCO (Co-doped ZnO) films were prepared by using submolecule-doping technique, where the magnetic sputtering of Co and ZnO were alternatively performed onto silicon substrates. The prepared ZCO films were then annealed at different temperatures, and the dependence of the ferromagnetism on annealing temperature was studied. It is found that the saturation magnetization of our samples decreases with the increase of annealing temperature. This behavior is possibly due to the decrease of oxygen vacancies with the increase of the annealing temperature. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.