Role of defects in magnetic properties of Fe-doped SnO2 films fabricated by the Sol--Gel method

This paper obtains the room temperature ferromagnetism in Sn1 xFexO2 films fabricated by the Sol-Gel method.X-ray diffraction results show that Fe doping inhibits the growth of SnO2 and Fe3+ ions occupy the Sn sites.The measurement of resistance excludes the free carrier inducing ferromagnetism.Moreover,the temperature dependence of magnetization has been better fitted by the Curie-Weiss law and bound magnetic polaron(BMP) theory.An enhancement of ferromagnetism is achieved by annealing the samples with x = 7.1% in H2,and a decrease of oxygen flow rate.All these results prove that the BMP model depending on defects can explain ferromagnetism in diluted magnetic oxides.