Effects of finite temperatures, valence bands and energy gaps on the indirect exchange interaction in intrinsic semiconductors

Abstract The indirect exchange interaction between localized magnetic moments via virtual excitations from the valence band in intrinsic semiconductors is calculated taking into account the temperature, energy gaps, finite valence bands and effective masses. The inclusion of finite temperature effects changes significantly the phase and magnitude of the oscillations. For small gap semiconductors the oscillatory character and the possibility of ferro-magnetic as well as anti-ferromagnetic coupling are obtained. The exchange interaction oscillates with temperature suggesting interesting applications of this model.