Room-temperature intrinsic ferromagnetism in epitaxial CrTe2 ultrathin films

Xiaoqian Zhang, Qiangsheng Lu, Wenqing Liu, Wei Niu, Jiabao Sun, Jacob Cook, Mitchel Vaninger, Paul F. Miceli, David J. Singh, Shang-Wei Lian, Tay-Rong Chang, Xiaoqing He, Jun Du, Liang He, Rong Zhang, Guang Bian, Yongbing Xu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

While the discovery of two-dimensional (2D) magnets opens the door for fundamental physics and next-generation spintronics, it is technically challenging to achieve the room-temperature ferromagnetic (FM) order in a way compatible with potential device applications. Here, we report the growth and properties of single- and few-layer CrTe2, a van der Waals (vdW) material, on bilayer graphene by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Intrinsic ferromagnetism with a Curie temperature (TC) up to 300 K, an atomic magnetic moment of ~0.21 μB/Cr and perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) constant (Ku) of 4.89 × 105 erg/cm3 at room temperature in these few-monolayer films have been unambiguously evidenced by superconducting quantum interference device and X-ray magnetic circular dichroism. This intrinsic ferromagnetism has also been identified by the splitting of majority and minority band dispersions with ~0.2 eV at Г point using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. The FM order is preserved with the film thickness down to a monolayer (TC ~ 200 K), benefiting from the strong PMA and weak interlayer coupling. The successful MBE growth of 2D FM CrTe2 films with room-temperature ferromagnetism opens a new avenue for developing large-scale 2D magnet-based spintronics devices.
Original languageEnglish
Article number2492
Pages (from-to)1-9
Number of pages9
JournalNature Communications
Volume12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 3 May 2021

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