Magnetism and clustering in Cr-doped InN

Density functional theory was applied to study the electronic and magnetic coupling of Cr-doped InN, in which magnetic configurations have been investigated. We found that the calculated ferromagnetic stabilizing energy is strongly linked to the Cr-Cr distance. The local magnetic moment of Cr is 2.3 mu(B), and it weakly depends on the Cr-Cr distance. The coupling between the Cr d and the N p states is found to be the origin of ferromagnetism in the InCrN system. The generalized gradient approximation-1/2 correction procedure increases the polarization of InCrN, making this system a robust half-metallic ferromagnetic alloy. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3527978]