Oxygen-vacancy-induced room-temperature magnetization in lamellar V2O5 thin films

In this work, we study the local atomic and electronic structures as well as oxygen-vacancy-induced magnetic properties of electrodeposited V2O5 films. Unlike stoichiometric V2O5, which is a diamagnetic lamellar semiconductor, our oxygen-defective V2O5 films are ferromagnetic at room-temperature and their saturation magnetization decreases with air exposure time. X-ray absorption spectroscopy was used to monitor the aging effect on these films, revealing that freshly-made samples exhibit only local crystalline order, whereas the aged ones undoubtedly show an enhancement of crystallinity and coordination symmetry. The mean number of oxygen atoms around V tends to increase, indicating a decrease of oxygen vacancies with time. Concurrently with the decrease of oxygen vacancies, a loss of saturation magnetization is also observed. Hence, it can be concluded that the ferromagnetism of the V2O5 films originates from a vacancy-induced mechanism, confirming the universality of this class of ferromagnetism.