Magnetic properties and materials articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) has been used extensively to encapsulate other van der Waals materials, protecting them from environmental degradation, and allowing integration into more complex heterostructures. Here, the authors make use of boron vacancy spin defects in h-BN using them to image the magnetic properties of a Fe3GeTe2 flake.

    • Mengqi Huang
    • , Jingcheng Zhou
    •  & Chunhui Rita Du

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A major feature defining the motion of magnetic spin textures is the chirality or ’handedness’ of the spin texture, which in turn depends on the underlying material. Normally it is considered as fixed, but in this article Fillion et al demonstrate control of the chirality of skyrmions in a ferromagnetic multilayer, switching the chirality back and forth using an applied gate voltage.

    • Charles-Elie Fillion
    • , Johanna Fischer
    •  & Hélène Béa

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Van der Waals crystals allow for magnetism down to the monolayer limit, however, this magnetism, and frequently the material itself, is fragile. Ferrites, conversely, have robust material stability and magnetic order, but are three dimensional. Here the authors succeed in creating a single unit cell thickness of Cobalt Ferrite via chemical vapour deposition, with hard magnetic properties, and curie temperature exceeding room temperature.

    • Ruiqing Cheng
    • , Lei Yin
    •  & Jun He

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Chirality of magnons is an intrinsic degree of freedom that characterizes the handedness of spin precession around its equilibrium direction. This commentary summarizes recent progress on spin pumping by ferromagnetic resonance in magnetic heterostructures. In particular, the commentary highlights one fundamental issue in spin pumping: the chirality dependence of the spin current.

    • Z. Q. Qiu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electron transfer has been shown to contribute to contact electrification at liquid–solid interface. Here, authors investigate the magnetic field effect on the liquid–solid electron transfer and propose a spin conversion model for the liquid–solid contact electrification.

    • Shiquan Lin
    • , Laipan Zhu
    •  & Zhong Lin Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Van der Waals heterostructures allow for the integration of several materials with different properties in the one heterostructure. Here, Li et al combine a quantum spin hall insulator, WTe2, with an insulating ferromagnet, Cr2Ge2Te6, in a van der Waals heterostructure, with resulting proximity-induced magnetism in the WTe2 layer leading to an anomalous Hall and Nernst effect.

    • Junxue Li
    • , Mina Rashetnia
    •  & Jing Shi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Many proposed spin-wave based devices make use of non-linear behaviour of spin-waves. Here, Dreyer et al show the emergence of non-linear spin waves oscillating at half-integer harmonics in the strong modulation regime. By applying super-Nyquist sampling Kerr microscopy they directly image these non-linear spin waves and demonstrate their phase-locking to an external frequency source.

    • Rouven Dreyer
    • , Alexander F. Schäffer
    •  & Georg Woltersdorf

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Skyrmions in synthetic antiferromagnets are appealing for use in future memory and computing devices, combining small size and fast motion, but creating, stabilizing, and observing them remains a challenge. Here, Juge et al demonstrate the stabilization and current and light induced nucleation of skyrmions in a synthetic antiferromagnet, observing the magnetization texture in each layer using X-ray magnetic microscopy.

    • Roméo Juge
    • , Naveen Sisodia
    •  & Olivier Boulle

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A 2D magnet CrSBr has attracted interest for applications in spintronics due to its high critical temperature and interesting magneto-electrical properties. Here the authors report a detailed study of its magnetic and structural phases and uncover a hidden magnetic order inside the magnetically-ordered phase.

    • Sara A. López-Paz
    • , Zurab Guguchia
    •  & Fabian O. von Rohr

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Long-range magnetic order of quasiparticle doped holes is important for understanding the physics of cuprate superconductors, albeit difficult to probe in experiments. Ong et al. observe ferromagnetism of quasiparticle doped holes in a cuprate heterostructure and discuss implications for cuprates in the ground state.

    • B. L. Ong
    • , K. Jayaraman
    •  & A. Rusydi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The thermal Hall effect, or a temperature gradient transverse to a heat current and a magnetic field, has been observed in many materials, but its mechanism is not fully understood. Uehara et al. demonstrate the dominant phonon contribution to both longitudinal and transverse thermal response in a metallic spin ice Pr2Ir2O7.

    • Taiki Uehara
    • , Takumi Ohtsuki
    •  & Yo Machida

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The spin exchange, which is central to spintronics, has been restricted to devices with long-range magnetic ordering to date. Here, Pei et al. design a single-molecule-magnet and utilize its internal spin exchange to control the current through a single-molecule junction with high spin polarization (>95%).

    • Tian Pei
    • , James O. Thomas
    •  & Lapo Bogani

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spin-orbit torques driven by the conventional spin Hall effect are widely used to switch magnetization, but this approach is nondeterministic and inefficient for magnets with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. Here, the authors demonstrate deterministic, field-free switching in a Ni/Co multilayer by exploiting the magnetic spin Hall effect in adjacent Mn3Sn.

    • Shuai Hu
    • , Ding-Fu Shao
    •  & Xuepeng Qiu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite a promising water harvesting approach solar steam generation low efficiency remains a challenging obstacle. Here, authors present a macro- and microscopically reconfigurable and magnetically responsive assembly towards a dynamic evaporation system with improved performance and salt resistance.

    • Yajie Hu
    • , Hongyun Ma
    •  & Liangti Qu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magnetic effects can emerge due to structural variations when the size of materials is reduced towards the nanoscale. Here, Chakrabarti et al demonstrates the opposite effect, showing that the interatomic distance in atomic wires changes by up to 20% depending on the orientation of an applied magnetic field.

    • Sudipto Chakrabarti
    • , Ayelet Vilan
    •  & Oren Tal

  • Article
    | Open Access

    CrGeTe3 is a van der Waals honeycomb ferromagnet, known for exhibiting strong coupling between lattice and spin degrees of freedom. Here, Chen et al perform neutron scattering on CrGeTe3, find a broadened spin-wave excitation resulting from zero-temperature motion of the atoms in the lattice.

    • Lebing Chen
    • , Chengjie Mao
    •  & Pengcheng Dai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magnetic molecules have long been seen to hold promise in magnetic sensing applications. In this paper, Serrano et al show that a single layer of a magnetic molecule, a terbium based complex, is sensitive to the local magnetic field variation of a superconducting surface on which it is deposited.

    • Giulia Serrano
    • , Lorenzo Poggini
    •  & Roberta Sessoli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recently, material realizations of the spin 3/2 Kitaev honeycomb model have been proposed, but the model has not been solved by either analytical or numerical methods. Here the authors report exact results for the spin 3/2 model consistent with numerical simulations, and find gapped and gapless quantum spin liquids.

    • Hui-Ke Jin
    • , W. M. H. Natori
    •  & J. Knolle

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Scanning NV center magnetometry enables imaging of weak magnetic fields at the nanoscale. Huxter et al. achieve an order-of-magnitude improvement in sensitivity by converting a spatial field gradient into an AC field by mechanical oscillations of the sensor, and image stray fields from atomic steps in an antiferromagnet.

    • W. S. Huxter
    • , M. L. Palm
    •  & C. L. Degen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Artificial spin ice systems offer a promising platform to study the motion of emergent magnetic monopoles, but controlled nucleation of monopoles is challenging. Here the authors demonstrate controlled injection and propagation of emergent monopoles in an artificial spin ice utilizing ferromagnetic defects.

    • Robert Puttock
    • , Ingrid M. Andersen
    •  & Olga Kazakova

  • Article
    | Open Access

    One challenge for spin-based electronics is the controlled and reliable switching of magnetization without magnetic fields. Here, Liu et al investigate a variety of compositions of CoPt, and determine the specific composition to maximize switching performance, potentially simplifying device design.

    • Liang Liu
    • , Chenghang Zhou
    •  & Jingsheng Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Scattering of electrons from defects and boundaries in mesoscopic samples is encoded in quantum interference patterns of magneto-conductance, but these patterns are difficult to interpret. Here the authors use machine learning to reconstruct electron wavefunction intensities and sample geometry from magneto-conductance data.

    • Shunsuke Daimon
    • , Kakeru Tsunekawa
    •  & Eiji Saitoh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Finding a parameter that limits the critical temperature of cuprate superconductors can provide crucial insight on the superconducting mechanism. Here, the authors use inelastic photon scattering on two Ruddlesden-Popper members of the model Hg-family of cuprates to reveal that the energy of magnetic fluctuations may play such a role, and suggest that the Cooper pairing is mediated by paramagnons.

    • Lichen Wang
    • , Guanhong He
    •  & Yuan Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Skyrmions, topological spin textures, can be pinned by defects present in the material that hosts them, influencing their motion. Here, Gruber et al show that the skyrmions are pinned at their boundary where the finite size of the skyrmions governs their pinning, and they demonstrate that certain pinning sites can switched on and off in-situ.

    • Raphael Gruber
    • , Jakub Zázvorka
    •  & Mathias Kläui

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recent work has reported a realization of a time crystal in the form of the Bose-Einstein condensate of magnons in superfluid 3He. Here, the authors study the dynamics of a pair of such quantum time crystals and show that it closely resembles the evolution of a two-level system, modified by nonlinear feedback.

    • S. Autti
    • , P. J. Heikkinen
    •  & V. B. Eltsov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There is a class of quantum phase transitions that do not fit into the traditional Landau paradigm, but are described in terms of fractionalized degrees of freedom and emergent gauge fields. Hong et al. find evidence of such a transition in a molecular spin-1/2 antiferromagnetic ladder compound under hydrostatic pressure.

    • Tao Hong
    • , Tao Ying
    •  & Stefan Wessel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fe3GeTe2, known as FGT, is a van der Waals magnetic material that was recently shown to host magnetic skyrmions. Here, Birch et al using both X-ray and electron microscopy to study the stability of skyrmions in FGT, revealing how the sample history can influence skyrmion formation

    • M. T. Birch
    • , L. Powalla
    •  & G. Schütz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In the Bloch or Neel domain walls in ferromagnets, the magnetization rotates smoothly from up to down, preserving its magnitude. Here, Lee et al show that Co3Sn2S2 exhibits a phase transition within its domain walls to a state in which the magnetization passes through zero rather than rotating as the wall is traversed.

    • Changmin Lee
    • , Praveen Vir
    •  & Joseph Orenstein

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A spin-glass forms in frustrated magnetic systems when at low temperatures impurity sites “freeze” into a random spin configuration. Here, by looking back at previous experimental results, Syzranov and Ramirez show that the glass-transition temperature grows with decreasing impurity concentration.

    • S. V. Syzranov
    •  & A. P. Ramirez

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Using ultrashort laser pulses it is possible to induce ferromagnetic ordering in otherwise anti-ferromagnetic FeRh. Here, Li et al. use THz emission spectroscopy with double pump to probe the transient dynamics of this transition, showing the insusceptibility of the ferromagnetic order to applied magnetic fields at picosecond timescales.

    • G. Li
    • , R. Medapalli
    •  & A. V. Kimel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Van der Waals heterostructures offer the potential of integrating multiple material layers into a single device to achieve new functionalities. Here, Ou et al combine ZrTe2, a topological semimetal, with CrTe2, a 2D ferromagnet, in a single heterostructure and demonstrate spin-orbit torque switching of the 2D ferromagnet by current in the topological semimetal.

    • Yongxi Ou
    • , Wilson Yanez
    •  & Nitin Samarth

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hopf solitons are three-dimensional particle-like field distortions with nontrivial topology. Tai et al. show stable Hopf solitons in a liquid crystal material in the absence of an electric field or geometric confinement, their transformation and hopping-like dynamics in response to electric pulses.

    • Jung-Shen B. Tai
    • , Jin-Sheng Wu
    •  & Ivan I. Smalyukh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors report pressure-induced superconductivity with concomitant enhancement of antiferromagnetic transition in layered EuTe2. The superconductivity is distinctly characterized by the high upper critical fields exceeding the Pauli limit among binary tellurides, a prerequisite of the coexistence of ferromagnetism with superconductivity.

    • P. T. Yang
    • , Z. Y. Liu
    •  & J.-G. Cheng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    An electron subject to a periodic potential and a constant electric field exhibit oscillatory dynamics, known as Bloch oscillations. Here, the authors demonstrate a magnetic analogue of Bloch oscillations in a ferromagnetic near-Ising chain, where magnetic excitations oscillate in response to a magnetic field.

    • Ursula B. Hansen
    • , Olav F. Syljuåsen
    •  & Kim Lefmann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    MnBi2Te4, referred to as MBT, is a van der Waals material combining topological electron bands with magnetic order. Here, Lujan et al study collective spin excitations in MBT, and show that magnetic fluctuations increase as samples reduce in thickness, implying less robust magnetic order.

    • David Lujan
    • , Jeongheon Choe
    •  & Xiaoqin Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Skyrmions and anti-skyrmions are magnetic textures that have garnered much interest due to their stability. Here, Jena et al demonstrate the existence of fractional spin textures at the edges of Heusler alloy sample, which can have continuous variable topological charges.

    • Jagannath Jena
    • , Börge Göbel
    •  & Stuart S. P. Parkin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Multipolar magnetic excitations are challenging to measure as most experimental probes are sensitive to dipolar processes. Here, Nag et al. show the existence of dispersing quadrupolar components to the spin excitations in an antiferromagnet, highlighting the importance of higher order magnetic excitations.

    • A. Nag
    • , A. Nocera
    •  & Ke-Jin Zhou

  • Article
    | Open Access

    SrCu2(BO3)2 is a 2D quantum antiferromagnet on a particular frustrated lattice showing multiple magnetization plateaus and quantum phase transitions under high pressure. Here the authors uncover novel magnetic phases in this material under combined effects of extreme magnetic field and pressure.

    • Zhenzhong Shi
    • , Sachith Dissanayake
    •  & Sara Haravifard

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The nature of quantum criticality in intermetallic f-electron compounds exhibiting valence fluctuations is not well understood. Here, using a combination of experimental techniques, the authors attribute quantum criticality in YbAlB4 to the anisotropic hybridization between the conduction and f-electrons.

    • Mihael S. Grbić
    • , Eoin C. T. O’Farrell
    •  & Satoru Nakatsuji

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The toxicity of heavy metals for MRI contrast agents is an issue. Here, the authors report on the development of conjugated polymers nanoparticles based on paramagnetic polypyrrole to generate T2 MRI contrast effects by changing the interactions between polarons and water protons.

    • Qinrui Lin
    • , Yuhong Yang
    •  & Zhengzhong Shao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tunable coupling between magnetism and the lattice is important for on-demand manipulation of magnetic phases. Here, the authors demonstrate that lattice vibrations can coherently modulate the interlayer magnetic exchange coupling in the magnetic topological insulator MnBi2Te4.

    • Hari Padmanabhan
    • , Maxwell Poore
    •  & Venkatraman Gopalan

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