THE ORIGIN OF FERROMAGNETISM IN Ni-DOPED ZnO AND SnO2

We present a detailed study of the ferromagnetism in nano-Ni-doped SnO2 and ZnO. It is shown that the ferromagnetic behavior is not an intrinsic property of the systems but rather associated with the presence of nNi particles in both matrices. The ferromagnetic transition of all Ni-doped samples is at 631(2) K, the same as the TC value for bulk Ni and nano-Ni powder. The saturation moments of the nano-Ni-doped samples scale with the Ni concentration and are much lower than that of pure Ni. This is due to the large surface area of nano-Ni particles which are partially oxidized due to nano-NiO. 119Sn Mössbauer spectroscopy studies on Sn0.96Ni0.04O2 do not show any transferred hyperfine field on the Sn nuclei, confirming that the magnetic properties stem from a different phase