Spontaneous magnetization and ferromagnetism in PbSe quantum dots

A high-temperature organic solution approach was applied to prepare crystalline PbSe quantum dots. It is diamagnetic with an atomic susceptibility of ∼−1.0×10−4emu∕molOe for bulk PbSe. The core diamagnetism of bulk PbSe was subtracted from our raw data. While transforming into the nanophase, orbital susceptibility including finite-size corrections to the Landau susceptibility has been observed. A paramagnetic zero-field peak with a large diamagnetic susceptibility in high fields exhibit in the field dependent susceptibility as characteristics of the Landau orbital susceptibility. At low temperatures and fields the paramagnetism dominates the contribution of magnetization of quantum dots while the diamagnetism dominates at high temperatures and fields. All these measurements, showing paramagnetism at low fields, indicate the existence of spontaneous magnetization in the quantum dot. In addition, we have observed profound hysteresis loops implying ferromagnetism among the quantum dots even at room temperature, which is spontaneous magnetization in the quantum dot and of the ferromagnetic order among these quantum dots.