Room temperature ferromagnetism in diluted magnetic semiconductor $Zn_{l-x}Cr_xTe$

The most distinguishing character of diluted magnetic semiconductors (DMSs) is a strong interaction between sp-carriers and localized d-spins (sp-d exchange interaction). Recently many "room-temperature (RT) ferromagnetic DMS" have been reported. However, it should be noted that their sp-d exchange interactions have not been confirmed yet. The lack of a clear evidence of the sp-d exchange interaction causes the controversy on the origin of the observed ferromagnetism. For the detection of the sp-d exchange interaction, magneto-optical spectroscopy such as a magnetic circular dichroism (MCD) measurement is the most powerful tool. By using the MCD spectroscopy, we have shown the sp-d exchange interactions in Zn$_{l-x}$Cr$_{x}$Te. Recently, we have obtained the RT ferromagnetism in a Zn$_{l-x}$Cr$_{x}$Te (x = 0.20) film.0) film.