Hole-mediated ferromagnetism in a high-magnetic moment material, Gd-doped GaN.

As an exotic material in spintronics, Gd-doped GaN is known as a room- temperature ferromagnetic material that possesses a large magnetic moment (4000 μBper Gd ion). This paper theoretically proposes that the large magnetic moment and room-temperature ferromagnetism observed in Gd-doped GaN is caused by N 2p holes based on the assumption that Ga-vacancies (VGa) result from the introduction of Gd ions via the volume compensation effect. This causes that the too large magnetic moment is estimated for Gd ions if only Gd ions contributed the magnetic moment.