The II-IV based semimagnetic semiconductors and related nanostructures belong to an attractive materials owing to their unique properties and because of new possibilities of application in spintronic devices. We report on growth, optical and magnetoptical characterization of CdTe and CdMnTe nanocrystals embedded in different dielectric matrices. For their growth different physical and chemical techniques have been used: i) growth by melting of the semiconductor-doped fine powder borosilicate glass with the post heat treatment; ii) embedding of semiconductor nanocrystals into polymer matrix; iii) growth of nanocrystals embedded in glass matrix by pulsed laser deposition technique; iv) growth of nanocrystals by rf magnetron sputtering; v) fabrication of nanoparticles by the colloidal chemistry technique. Comparative structural and optical study of the grown CdTe and CdMnTe nanocrystals demonstrates advantages and drawbacks for the used methods.
Results of magneto-optical experiments on CdMnTe nanocrystals suggest of coexistence both the quantum size effect and the exchange interaction of the band electrons with the magnetic ions.
Possible application of semimagnetic semiconductor nanocrystals in development of spin filter devices is discussed.
This work was supported in part by INTAS grant No.01-0354.