Electric control of optically-induced magnetization dynamics in a van der Waals ferromagnetic semiconductor

Freddie Hendriks; Rafael R Rojas-Lopez; Bert Koopmans; Marcos H D Guimarães

doi:10.1038/s41467-024-45623-2

Electric control of optically-induced magnetization dynamics in a van der Waals ferromagnetic semiconductor

Nat Commun. 2024 Feb 12;15(1):1298. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-45623-2.

Authors

Freddie Hendriks¹, Rafael R Rojas-Lopez^{1

2}, Bert Koopmans³, Marcos H D Guimarães⁴

Affiliations

¹ Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
² Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
³ Department of Applied Physics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
⁴ Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands. m.h.guimaraes@rug.nl.

Abstract

Electric control of magnetization dynamics in two-dimensional (2D) magnetic materials is an essential step for the development of novel spintronic nanodevices. Electrostatic gating has been shown to greatly affect the static magnetic properties of some van der Waals magnets, but the control over their magnetization dynamics is still largely unexplored. Here we show that the optically-induced magnetization dynamics in the van der Waals ferromagnet Cr₂Ge₂Te₆ can be effectively controlled by electrostatic gates, with a one order of magnitude change in the precession amplitude and over 10% change in the internal effective field. In contrast to the purely thermally-induced mechanisms previously reported for 2D magnets, we find that coherent opto-magnetic phenomena play a major role in the excitation of magnetization dynamics in Cr₂Ge₂Te₆. Our work sets the first steps towards electric control over the magnetization dynamics in 2D ferromagnetic semiconductors, demonstrating their potential for applications in ultrafast opto-magnonic devices.