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Enhanced Room Temperature Ferromagnetism in Highly Strained 2D Semiconductor Cr2Ge2Te6
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Enhanced Room Temperature Ferromagnetism in Highly Strained 2D Semiconductor Cr2Ge2Te6

Adam O’Neill, Sharidya Rahman, Zhen Zhang, Peggy Schoenherr, Tanju Yildirim, Bo Gu, Gang Su, Yuerui Lu and Jan Seidel
ACS nano, Vol.17(1), pp.735-742
10/01/2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.2c10209
PMID: 36546693

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43 Times Cited - Web of Science

Abstract

strain magnetic force microscopy CGT 2D material nanowrinkles Curie temperature
Emergent magnetism in van der Waals materials offers exciting opportunities in fabricating atomically thin spintronic devices. One pertinent obstacle has been the low transition temperatures (T c) inherent to these materials, precluding room temperature applications. Here, we show that large structural gradients found in highly strained nanoscale wrinkles in Cr2Ge2Te6 (CGT) lead to significant increases of T c. Magnetic force microscopy was utilized in characterizing multiple strained CGT nanostructures leading to experimental evidence of elevated T c, depending on the strain percentage estimated from finite element analysis. Our findings are further supported by ab initio and DFT studies of the strained material, which indicates that strain directly augments the ferromagnetic coupling between Cr atoms in CGT, influenced by superexchange interaction; this provides strong insight into the mechanism of the enhanced magnetism and T c.

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