Highly Tunable Beyond-Room-Temperature Intrinsic Ferromagnetism in Cr-Doped Topological Crystalline Insulator SnTe Crystals

Younis Muhammad; Hongfei Yin; Gaojie Zhang; Hao Wu; Liang Zhang; Li Yang; Luji Li; Imran Tahir; Raza Hasan; Shahid Atiq; Wenfeng Zhang; Haixin Chang

doi:10.1021/acs.inorgchem.2c02029

Highly Tunable Beyond-Room-Temperature Intrinsic Ferromagnetism in Cr-Doped Topological Crystalline Insulator SnTe Crystals

Inorg Chem. 2022 Dec 12;61(49):19702-19709. doi: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.2c02029. Epub 2022 Oct 31.

Authors

Younis Muhammad¹, Hongfei Yin¹, Gaojie Zhang¹, Hao Wu¹, Liang Zhang², Li Yang¹, Luji Li¹, Imran Tahir³, Raza Hasan³, Shahid Atiq⁴, Wenfeng Zhang^{1

5}, Haixin Chang^{1

5}

Affiliations

¹ Center for Joining and Electronic Packaging, State Key Laboratory of Material Processing and Die & Mold Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan 430074, China.
² School of Science and Center for Materials Science and Engineering, Guangxi University of Science and Technology, Liuzhou 545026, China.
³ Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Luoyu Road 1037, Wuhan 430074, China.
⁴ Centre of Excellence in Solid State Physics, University of the Punjab, Lahore 54590, Pakistan.
⁵ Shenzhen R&D Center of Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Shenzhen 518000, China.

PMID: 36315132
DOI: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.2c02029

Abstract

The combination of topological phase and intrinsic beyond-room-temperature ferromagnetism is expected to realize the quantum anomalous Hall effect at a high temperature. However, no beyond-room-temperature intrinsic ferromagnetism has been reported in either topological insulator or topological crystalline insulator (TCI) so far. Here, we report Cr-doping in TCI-phase SnTe crystals which possess highly tunable beyond-room-temperature intrinsic ferromagnetism including T_c, magnetic moment, and coercivity by varying Cr contents and crystal thickness. With the increase of the Cr content, the T_c increases by 159 K from 221 to 380 K and the saturation magnetic moments increase by ∼23.6 times from 0.018 to 0.421 μ_B/f.u. This intrinsic beyond-room-temperature ferromagnetism is fully demonstrated by the anomalous Hall effect and magneto-optical Kerr effect in a single Cr_xSn_1-xTe nanosheet. Moreover, the room-temperature tunneling magnetoresistance effect has been realized by using a Cr_xSn_1-xTe flake, a Fe thin film, and a commercially compatible ultrathin AlO_x tunneling barrier. This work indicates a great potential of Cr_xSn_1-xTe crystals in room-temperature magnetoelectronic and spintronic devices.