Correlation between crystal defects and room temperature ferromagnetism of hydrothermally grown Eu substituted ZnO nanorods

The hydrothermal method has been used to grow zinc oxide nanorods on a glass substrate with different Europium (Eu) concentrations. The Eu doping effect on the structural, optical, and magnetic properties of the samples was systematically investigated. The undoped sample exhibited diamagnetic behaviour, while soft room temperature ferromagnetism was observed in all the Eu substituted samples. With regard to the hysteresis loops, the highest coercivity, saturated magnetic moment, and retentive magnetic moment values were observed to be 41.64 Oe, 18.86 × 10⁻⁶ emu, and 2.17 × 10⁻⁶ emu, respectively, for ZnO:Eu 7%. According to the relationships between the magnetic properties, Eu doping levels, and defects concentrations, it can be concluded that the room temperature ferromagnetism observed in the samples is caused by crystal point defects including oxygen vacancies and zinc interstitials, rather than carrier-mediated exchange interactions, which is also consistent with the bound magnetic polarons theory.