Structural and magnetic properties of Ni1-xFex O thin films synthesized by pulsed laser deposition

Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method was used to fabricate Ni1-xFexO (x=0.02，0.05) dilute magnetic semiconductor thin films with room temperature ferromagnetism. For the Ni0.98Fe0.03O sample with a lower Fe content，the crystalline structures of the Ni1-xFexO films are of the NaCl type as determined by X-ray diffraction. For the Ni0.95Fe0.05O sample with a higher Fe content，some additional weak diffraction peaks corresponding to α-Fe2O3 phase can be observed. From the X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS)， it is shown that the doped Fe impurities in Ni0.98Fe0.02O are substitutionally incorporated into the NiO host and no secondary phases with room temperature ferromagnetism are found. These results show the intrinsic ferromagnetism of the Ni1-xFexO samples.