  The search for oxide-based room-temperature ferromagnetism has been one of
the holy grails in condensed matter physics. Room-temperature ferromagnetism
observed in Nb-doped SrTiO3 single crystals is reported in this Rapid
Communication. The ferromagnetism can be eliminated by air annealing (making
the samples predominantly diamagnetic) and can be recovered by subsequent
vacuum annealing. The temperature dependence of magnetic moment resembles the
temperature dependence of carrier density, indicating that the magnetism is
closely related to the free carriers. Our results suggest that the
ferromagnetism is induced by oxygen vacancies. In addition, hysteretic
magnetoresistance was observed for magnetic field parallel to current,
indicating that the magnetic moments are in the plane of the samples. The x-ray
photoemission spectroscopy, the static time-of-flight and the dynamic secondary
ion mass spectroscopy and proton induced x-ray emission measurements were
performed to examine magnetic impurities, showing that the observed
ferromagnetism is unlikely due to any magnetic contaminant.
