Structural and Morphological Properties of Zn_1−xZr_xO with Room-Temperature Ferromagnetism and Fabricated by Using the Co-Precipitation Technique

In this study, ZnO was doped with various concentrations of zirconium (x_Zr = 0 - 5 mole%), by using the co-precipitation method so as to achieve successful formation of a single-phase diluted magnetic semiconductor. X-Ray diffraction results showed that the crystal structure of Zn_1−xZr_xO was that of hexagonal wurtzite. The structural properties showed no additional phases at low impurity contents (x_Zr < 3%); however, impurity peaks belonging to ZrO₂ appeared at high impurity contents (x_Zr ≥ 3%). The calculated ZnO lattice constants 'a' and 'c' were found to be 3.256 Å and 5.203 Å, respectively, which are in close match to the values found in the literature. For undoped ZnO, the average calculated particle size was 75.35 nm, and calculated bond length was 1.98 Å. The residual strains and the secondary phases of ZrO₂ were found to affect the lattice parameters and the bond lengths. The scanning electron microscopy images showed a porous structure with non-uniform surface morphology. However, a few nano-scale dendrite-type structures were also present, indicating the potential applications of Zr-doped ZnO in nano-devices. Vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM) was employed to measure the magnetic properties, and the measurements showed undoped ZnO to be diamagnetic; however, doping with Zr induced a small ferromagnetic character at small magnetic fields. On the other hand, a paramagnetic behavior was evident at higher magnetic fields. The magnetization at 1T was observed to degrade with increasing Zr content in the ZnO host lattice, which was due to the residual strains and the secondary phases.