Yiping Zhao

Electrical, optical and structural properties of CuCrO2 films prepared by pulsed laser deposition

Transparent conducting CuCrO2 thin films were prepared by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) from a nanocrystalline CuCrO2 target. The derived CuCrO2 films were highly c-axis oriented deposited at 800 K. The microstructural, electrical as well as optical properties were studied. It was found that the films were relatively smooth and behaved as semiconductors. The energy band of the CuCrO2 films is constructed based on the Mott–Davis model in order to investigate the conduction mechanism. The transmittances of the films in the visible region are about 60–80% with direct band gaps of about 3.2 eV. The results suggested that CuCrO2 films could be successfully prepared by the PLD method, which can broaden the applications of the transparent conducting oxide films.

Magnetic and electrical properties of p-type Mn-doped CuCrO2 semiconductors

Mn-doped CuCrO2 polycrystalline semiconductors were synthesized by the sol–gel method. The valence state of the Mn ions in the CuCr1−xMnxO2 samples was identified as 3+ by analysing their lattice parameters, their electrical properties and their x-ray photoelectron spectra. The temperature dependence of the susceptibility of all samples exhibits paramagnetic behaviour at high temperature. For x = 0.20 the samples exhibit a clear ferromagnetic (FM) transition at 120 K. Clear hysteresis loops indicate that FM order exists in the Mn-doped samples at 50 K. All samples behave like semiconductors. The electrical and magnetic properties indicate that the ferromagnetism can be attributed to the double exchange interaction between the Mn3+ and Cr3+ in CuCr1−xMnxO2 semiconductors.