  The existence of high-temperature ferromagnetism in thin films and
nanoparticles of oxides containing small quantities of magnetic dopants remains
controversial. Some regard these materials as dilute magnetic semiconductors,
while others think they are ferromagnetic only because the magnetic dopants
form secondary ferromagnetic impurity phases such as cobalt metal or magnetite.
There are also reports in d0 systems and other defective oxides that contain no
magnetic ions. Here, we investigate TiO2 (rutile) containing 1 - 5% of iron
cations and find that the room-temperature ferromagnetism of films prepared by
pulsed-laser deposition is not due to magnetic ordering of the iron. The films
are neither dilute magnetic semiconductors nor hosts to an iron-based
ferromagnetic impurity phase. A new model is developed for defect-related
ferromagnetism which involves a spin-split defect band populated by charge
transfer from a proximate charge reservoir in the present case a mixture Fe2+
and Fe3+ ions in the oxide lattice. The phase diagram for the model shows how
inhomogeneous Stoner ferromagnetism depends on the total number of electrons
Ntot, the Stoner exchange integral I and the defect bandwidth W; the band
occupancy is governed by the d-d Coulomb interaction U. There are regions of
ferromagnetic metal, half-metal and insulator as well as nonmagnetic metal and
insulator. A characteristic feature of the high-temperature Stoner magnetism is
an an anhysteretic magnetization curve which is practically temperature
independent below room temperature. This is related to a wandering
ferromagnetic axis which is determined by local dipole fields. The
magnetization is limited by the defect concentration, not by the 3d doping.
Only 1-2 % of the volume of the films is magnetically ordered.
