Emergence of electric-field-tunable interfacial ferromagnetism in 2D antiferromagnet heterostructures

Bibliographic Details
Title: Emergence of electric-field-tunable interfacial ferromagnetism in 2D antiferromagnet heterostructures
Authors: Cheng, Guanghui, Rahman, Mohammad Mushfiqur, He, Zhiping, Allcca, Andres Llacsahuanga, Rustagi, Avinash, Stampe, Kirstine Aggerbeck, Zhu, Yanglin, Yan, Shaohua, Tian, Shangjie, Mao, Zhiqiang, Lei, Hechang, Watanabe, Kenji, Taniguchi, Takashi, Upadhyaya, Pramey, Chen, Yong P.
Source: Nat. Commun. 13 (2022) 7348
Publication Year: 2022
Collection: Condensed Matter
Subject Terms: Condensed Matter - Materials Science, Condensed Matter - Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
More Details: Van der Waals (vdW) magnet heterostructures have emerged as new platforms to explore exotic magnetic orders and quantum phenomena. Here, we study heterostructures of layered antiferromagnets, CrI3 and CrCl3, with perpendicular and in-plane magnetic anisotropy, respectively. Using magneto-optical Kerr effect microscopy, we demonstrate out-of-plane magnetic order in the CrCl3 layer proximal to CrI3, with ferromagnetic interfacial coupling between the two. Such an interlayer exchange field leads to higher critical temperature than that of either CrI3 or CrCl3 alone. We further demonstrate significant electric-field control of the coercivity, attributed to the naturally broken structural inversion symmetry of the heterostructure allowing unprecedented direct coupling between electric field and interfacial magnetism. These findings illustrate the opportunity to explore exotic magnetic phases and engineer spintronic devices in vdW heterostructures.
Document Type: Working Paper
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-34812-6
Access URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2203.13051
Accession Number: edsarx.2203.13051
Database: arXiv
More Details
DOI:10.1038/s41467-022-34812-6