Harnessing the duality of magnetism and conductivity: A review of oxide based dilute magnetic semiconductors

Over the last two decades, the new branch of spintronics, i.e., semiconductor spintronics, has gained more attention because it integrates the properties of conventional semiconductors, such as optical bandgap and charge carriers, helpful for processing and computing pieces of information combined with magnets for data storage applications in a single device. Likewise, substituting transition metal (TM) ions to induce magnetism into semiconductors or oxides creates dilute magnetic semiconductors (DMSs) or oxides (DMOs) with high electronic, photonic, and magnetic functionality. This review article discusses the historical outline of magnetic semiconductors with their origin and mechanism. It also includes a concise overview of various DMO systems based on their conductivity (p-type and n-type) to elucidate the synthesis, origin, and control mechanisms and further evoke to prepare consumable spintronics devices. The occurrence of room temperature ferromagnetism (RTFM) with transparency and conductivity can be helpful in spintronics device fabrications, which is assumed to be governed by the formation of intrinsic defects, charge carriers, morphology, and the induced exchange interactions between ions. The DMOs-based spintronics devices, such as magneto-optical devices, transparent ferromagnets, and spin-based solar cells, exploit both semiconducting and magnetic properties, which have also been discussed in this review article with outlook and perspectives.