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March 25, 2021 02:00 PM Paris (GMT +1)
Chromium ditelluride : A van der Waals ferromagnet up to room temperature, down to the 2D limit ?
In 2017, two seminal papers reported ferromagnetism in two distinct two-dimensional (2D) materials — crystals only a few-atom thick, which interact with their surroundings via van der Waals interactions mainly.
This new class of materials hosts very peculiar spin physics, and holds promises for spintronics devices, for instance when integrated in artificial stacks with other 2D materials (van der Waals heterostructures).
One major hurdle in the study and applications of the increasing number of 2D ferromagnets known to date is their low Curie temperature.
We introduce chromium ditelluride (CrTe2), a lamellar van der Waals material that is synthesized with a particular crystal structure in the bulk, and which we exfoliate in the form of ultra-thin micro-flakes.
Remarkably, like for the bulk compound, we found that the Curie temperature is slightly above room temperature.
We used magnetic imaging to resolve the magnetization texture of the flakes and to study the effect of temperature and of an external magnetic field.
F. Fabre et al., Phys. Rev. Materials, in press
A. Purbawati et al. ACS Appl. Mater. Interf. 12, 30702 (2020)
X. Sun et al. Nano Res. 13, 3358 (2020)
