Half-Metallic Heusler Alloy/MoS2 Based Magnetic Tunnel Junction

Konstantin V Larionov; Jose J Pais Pereda; Songtian Li; Seiji Sakai; Pavel B Sorokin

doi:10.1021/acsami.2c09655

Half-Metallic Heusler Alloy/MoS₂ Based Magnetic Tunnel Junction

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2022 Dec 14;14(49):55167-55173. doi: 10.1021/acsami.2c09655. Epub 2022 Dec 2.

Authors

Konstantin V Larionov¹, Jose J Pais Pereda¹, Songtian Li², Seiji Sakai², Pavel B Sorokin¹

Affiliations

¹ National University of Science and Technology MISiS, 4 Leninskiy Prospect, Moscow119049, Russian Federation.
² Quantum Beam Science Research Directorate, National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology, 1233 Watanuki, Takasaki370-1292, Japan.

PMID: 36459613
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.2c09655

Abstract

Integration of half-metallic materials and 2D spacers into vertical magnetoresistive spin valves may pave the way for effective low-power consumption storage and memory technologies. Driven by the recent successful growth of graphene/half-metallic Co₂Fe(Ge_1/2Ga_1/2) (CFGG) heterostructure, here we report a theoretical investigation of magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) based on the ferromagnetic CFGG Heusler alloy and the MoS₂ spacer of different thicknesses. Using ab initio approach, we demonstrate that the inherent ferromagnetism of CFGG is preserved at the interface, while its half-metallicity is recovering within few atomic layers. Ballistic transport in CFGG/MoS₂/CFGG MTJ is studied within the nonequilibrium Green's function formalism, and a large magnetoresistance value up to ∼10⁵% is observed. These findings support the idea of effective spintronics devices based on half-metallic Heusler alloys and highly diversified transition metal dichalcogenide family.

Keywords: DFT; Heusler alloy; half-metal; magnetic tunnel junction; transition metal dichalcogenides; tunnel magnetoresistance.