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

Guanghui Cheng; Mohammad Mushfiqur Rahman; Zhiping He; Andres Llacsahuanga Allcca; Avinash Rustagi; Kirstine Aggerbeck Stampe; Yanglin Zhu; Shaohua Yan; Shangjie Tian; Zhiqiang Mao; Hechang Lei; Kenji Watanabe; Takashi Taniguchi; Pramey Upadhyaya; Yong P Chen

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-34812-6

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

Nat Commun. 2022 Dec 15;13(1):7348. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-34812-6.

Authors

Guanghui Cheng^{1

2

3

4}, Mohammad Mushfiqur Rahman⁵, Zhiping He⁴, Andres Llacsahuanga Allcca^{2

3

6}, Avinash Rustagi^{5

7}, Kirstine Aggerbeck Stampe⁸, Yanglin Zhu⁹, Shaohua Yan¹⁰, Shangjie Tian¹⁰, Zhiqiang Mao⁹, Hechang Lei¹⁰, Kenji Watanabe¹¹, Takashi Taniguchi¹², Pramey Upadhyaya^{3

5

6}, Yong P Chen^{13

14

15

16

17

18}

Affiliations

¹ Advanced Institute for Materials Research (WPI-AIMR), Tohoku University, Sendai, 980-8577, Japan.
² Department of Physics and Astronomy, and Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA.
³ Purdue Quantum Science and Engineering Institute, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA.
⁴ Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026, China.
⁵ Elmore family school of electrical and computer engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA.
⁶ Quantum Science Center, Oak Ridge, TN, 37831, USA.
⁷ Intel Corp., Hillsboro, OR, 97124, USA.
⁸ Institute of Physics and Astronomy and Villum Centers for Dirac Materials and for Hybrid Quantum Materials, Aarhus University, Aarhus-C, 8000, Denmark.
⁹ Department of Physics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
¹⁰ Laboratory for Neutron Scattering, and Beijing Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Functional Materials MicroNano Devices, Department of Physics, Renmin University of China, Beijing, 100872, China.
¹¹ Research Center for Functional Materials, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, 305-0044, Japan.
¹² International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, 305-0044, Japan.
¹³ Advanced Institute for Materials Research (WPI-AIMR), Tohoku University, Sendai, 980-8577, Japan. yongchen@purdue.edu.
¹⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, and Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA. yongchen@purdue.edu.
¹⁵ Purdue Quantum Science and Engineering Institute, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA. yongchen@purdue.edu.
¹⁶ Elmore family school of electrical and computer engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA. yongchen@purdue.edu.
¹⁷ Quantum Science Center, Oak Ridge, TN, 37831, USA. yongchen@purdue.edu.
¹⁸ Institute of Physics and Astronomy and Villum Centers for Dirac Materials and for Hybrid Quantum Materials, Aarhus University, Aarhus-C, 8000, Denmark. yongchen@purdue.edu.

Abstract

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.