ZnO doped with transition metal ions

Spin-dependent phenomena in ZnO may lead to devices with new or enhanced functionality, such as polarized solid-state light sources and sensitive biological and chemical sensors. In this paper, we review the experimental results on transition metal doping of ZnO and show that the material can be made with a single phase at high levels of Co incorporation (similar to 15 at.%) and exhibits the anomalous Hall effect. ZnO is expected to be one of the most promising materials for room-temperature polarized light emission; but to date, we have been unable to detect the optical spin polarization in ZnO. The short spin relaxation time observed likely results from the Rashba effect. Possible solutions involve either cubic phase ZnO or the use of additional stressor layers to create a larger spin splitting in order to get a polarized light emission from these structures or to look at alternative semiconductors and fresh device approaches.