2019/03/01 by Mohammed Alghamdi, Mark Lohmann, Junxue Li +8 · 1 citation
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #2D Materials and Applications #Condensed matter physics #Ferromagnetism #Magnetic and transport properties of perovskites and related materials #Materials science #Multiferroics and related materials #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Spin (aerodynamics) #Thermodynamics #Torque #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b01043
arxiv created 2019/03/01 · openalex publication_date 2019/06/10 · arxiv updated 2019/07/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Among van der Waals (vdW) layered ferromagnets, Fe 3 GeTe 2 (FGT) is an excellent candidate material to form FGT/heavy metal heterostructures for studying the effect of spin–orbit torques (SOT). Its metallicity, strong perpendicular magnetic anisotropy built in the single atomic layers, relatively high Curie temperature ( T c ∼ 225 K), and electrostatic gate tunability offer a tantalizing possibility of achieving the ultimate high SOT limit in monolayer all-vdW nanodevices. In this study, we fabricate heterostructures of FGT/Pt with 5 nm of Pt sputtered onto the atomically flat surface of ∼15–23 nm exfoliated FGT flakes. The spin current generated in Pt exerts a damping-like SOT on FGT magnetization. At ∼2.5 × 10 11 A/m 2 current density, SOT causes the FGT magnetization to switch, which is detected by the anomalous Hall effect of FGT. To quantify the SOT effect, we measure the second harmonic Hall responses as the applied magnetic field rotates the FGT magnetization in the plane. Our analysis shows that the SOT efficiency is comparable with that of the best heterostructures containing three-dimensional (3D) ferromagnetic metals and much larger than that of heterostructures containing 3D ferrimagnetic insulators. Such large efficiency is attributed to the atomically flat FGT/Pt interface, which demonstrates the great potential of exploiting vdW heterostructures for highly efficient spintronic nanodevices.