Transition metal doped III-V, II-VI, and group IV compounds offer an unprecedented opportunity to explore ferromagnetism in semiconductors. This review discusses Fermi-level engineering in these wide bandgap materials.

Fueled by the ever-increasing demand for larger hard disk drive storage capacities, research over the past decade has resulted in AlOx- and TiOx-based magnetic tunnel junctions that exhibit a large magnetoresistance at room temperature.

The application of tunneling magnetoresistance in spintronics requires control of the materials and processes involved on the atomic scale. First-principle electronic structure calculations give an insight into its microscopic origins.