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Electric-field control of magnetism in a few-layered van der Waals ferromagnetic semiconductor

Nature Nanotechnology volume 13, pages 554–559 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

Manipulating a quantum state via electrostatic gating has been of great importance for many model systems in nanoelectronics. Until now, however, controlling the electron spins or, more specifically, the magnetism of a system by electric-field tuning has proven challenging1,2,3,4. Recently, atomically thin magnetic semiconductors have attracted significant attention due to their emerging new physical phenomena5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13. However, many issues are yet to be resolved to convincingly demonstrate gate-controllable magnetism in these two-dimensional materials. Here, we show that, via electrostatic gating, a strong field effect can be observed in devices based on few-layered ferromagnetic semiconducting Cr2Ge2Te6. At different gate doping, micro-area Kerr measurements in the studied devices demonstrate bipolar tunable magnetization loops below the Curie temperature, which is tentatively attributed to the moment rebalance in the spin-polarized band structure. Our findings of electric-field-controlled magnetism in van der Waals magnets show possibilities for potential applications in new-generation magnetic memory storage, sensors and spintronics.

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Fig. 1: Characterization of Cr2Ge2Te6 and its FET with a Si gate.
Fig. 2: Electrical transport and magnetic properties of ~20 nm Cr2Ge2Te6 FETs with ionic gate.
Fig. 3: Electrical transport properties of BN-encapsulated few-layered Cr2Ge2Te6 FETs with Si gate.
Fig. 4: Kerr measurement of BN-encapsulated 3.5 nm Cr2Ge2Te6 sample with solid Si gate.
Fig. 5: First-principles simulations.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFA0206302) and by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC; grants 11504385 and 51627801). Z.Z. acknowledges support from the NSFC (grant 51331006) and the CAS (project KJZD-EW-M05-3). T.Y. acknowledges support from the Major Program of Aerospace Advanced Manufacturing Technology Research Foundation, NSFC and CASC (grant U1537204). The work in Shanxi University was supported financially by the NSFC (grant 61574087) and the Fund for Shanxi ‘1331 Project’ Key Subjects Construction (1331KSC). D.S. acknowledges support from the NSFC (grants 51272256, 61422406 and 61574143) and MSTC (grant 2016YFB04001100). S.O. acknowledges support from Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S) (25220604) and LANEF. The authors are grateful for discussions with H. Yuan.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Zhi Wang, Tongyao Zhang, Mei Ding, Baojuan Dong.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, China

    Zhi Wang, Baojuan Dong, Maolin Chen, Xiaoxi Li, Jianqi Huang, Hanwen Wang, Xiaotian Zhao, Yong Li, Da Li, Dongming Sun, Teng Yang, Zheng Han & Zhidong Zhang

  2. School of Material Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Anhui, China

    Zhi Wang, Baojuan Dong, Maolin Chen, Xiaoxi Li, Jianqi Huang, Hanwen Wang, Xiaotian Zhao, Yong Li, Da Li, Dongming Sun, Teng Yang, Zheng Han & Zhidong Zhang

  3. State Key Laboratory of Quantum Optics and Quantum Optics Devices, Institute of Opto-Electronics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, China

    Tongyao Zhang, Yanxu Li, Yuansen Chen & Jing Zhang

  4. Collaborative Innovation Center of Extreme Optics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, China

    Tongyao Zhang, Yanxu Li, Yuansen Chen & Jing Zhang

  5. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Changsha University of Science & Technology, Changsha, China

    Mei Ding & Chuankun Jia

  6. State Key Laboratory of Mechanical Transmission, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China

    Lidong Sun

  7. College of Sciences, Liaoning Shihua University, Fushun, China

    Huaihong Guo

  8. State Key Lab for Mesoscopic Physics and School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Yu Ye

  9. Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, Beijing, China

    Yu Ye

  10. Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI), Materials Science Research Laboratory, Yokosuka, Kanagawa, Japan

    Shimpei Ono

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Contributions

Z.H. and Z.Z. conceived the experiment and supervised the overall project. Z.W., X.L. and Y.Y. fabricated the samples. Z.W., T.Z., Ya.L., Y.C. and Z.H. carried out experimental measurements. S.O. provided the ionic liquid and advised on the experiment. B.D., J.H. and T.Y. conducted the theoretical simulations. Z.H., M.D., T.Z., T.Y. and Y.C. analysed the data. The manuscript was written by Z.H., Y.C. and T.Y. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yuansen Chen, Teng Yang or Zheng Han.

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Wang, Z., Zhang, T., Ding, M. et al. Electric-field control of magnetism in a few-layered van der Waals ferromagnetic semiconductor. Nature Nanotech 13, 554–559 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-018-0186-z

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