  In a recent letter, it has been predicted within first principle studies that
Mn-doped ZrO2 compounds could be good candidate for spintronics application
because expected to exhibit ferromagnetism far beyond room temperature. Our
purpose is to address this issue experimentally for Mn-doped tetragonal
zirconia. We have prepared polycrystalline samples of Y0.15(Zr0.85-yMny)O2
(y=0, 0.05, 0.10, 0.15 & 0.20) by using standard solid state method at
equilibrium. The obtained samples were carefully characterized by using x-ray
diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, elemental color mapping, X-ray
photoemission spectroscopy and magnetization measurements. From the detailed
structural analyses, we have observed that the 5% Mn doped compound
crystallized into two symmetries (dominating tetragonal & monoclinic), whereas
higher Mn doped compounds are found to be in the tetragonal symmetry only. The
spectral splitting of the Mn 3s core-level x-ray photoelectron spectra confirms
that Mn ions are in the Mn3+ oxidation state and indicate a local magnetic
moment of about 4.5 {\mu}B/Mn. Magnetic measurements showed that compounds up
to 10% of Mn doping are paramagnetic with antiferromagnetic interactions.
However, higher Mn doped compound exhibits local ferrimagnetic ordering. Thus,
no ferromagnetism has been observed for all Mn-doped tetragonal ZrO2 samples.
