  The observed correlation of oxygen vacancies and room temperature
ferromagnetic ordering in Co doped ZnO1-o nanoparticles reported earlier (Naeem
et al Nanotechnology 17, 2675-2680) has been further explored by transport and
optical measurements. In these particles room temperature ferromagnetic
ordering had been observed to occur only after annealing in forming gas. In the
current work the optical properties have been studied by diffuse reflection
spectroscopy in the UV-Vis region and the band gap of the Co doped compositions
has been found to decrease with Co addition. Reflections minima are observed at
the energies characteristic of Co+2 d-d (tethrahedral symmetry) crystal field
transitions, further establishing the presence of Co in substitutional sites.
Electrical transport measurements on palletized samples of the nanoparticles
show that the effect of a forming gas is to strongly decrease the resistivity
with increasing Co concentration. For the air annealed and non-ferromagnetic
samples the variation in the resistivity as a function of Co content are
opposite to those observed in the particles prepared in forming gas. The
ferromagnetic samples exhibit an apparent change from insulator to metal with
increasing temperatures for T>380K and this change becomes more pronounced with
increasing Co content. The magnetic and resistive behaviors are correlated by
considering the model by Calderon et al [M. J. Calderon and S. D. Sarma, Annals
of Physics 2007 (Accepted doi: 10.1016/j.aop.2007.01.010] where the
ferromagnetism changes from being mediated by polarons in the low temperature
insulating region to being mediated by the carriers released from the weakly
bound states in the higher temperature metallic region.
