Atomically Thin CrCl3: An In-Plane Layered Antiferromagnetic Insulator

Cai, Xinghan; Song, Tiancheng; Wilson, Nathan; Clark, Genevieve; He, Minhao; Zhang, Xiaoou; Taniguchi, Takashi; Watanabe, Kenji; Yao, Wang; Xiao, Di; McGuire, Michael A.; Cobden, David; Xu, Xiaodong

doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b01317

Title: Atomically Thin CrCl₃: An In-Plane Layered Antiferromagnetic Insulator

Journal Article · Tue May 14 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Nano Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b01317· OSTI ID:1561640

Cai, Xinghan ^[1]; Song, Tiancheng ^[1]; Wilson, Nathan ^[1]; Clark, Genevieve ^[1]; He, Minhao ^[2]; Zhang, Xiaoou ^[3]; Taniguchi, Takashi ^[4]; Watanabe, Kenji ^[4]; Yao, Wang ^[5]; Xiao, Di ^[3];

^[6]; Cobden, David ^[1]; Xu, Xiaodong ^[1]

Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)
University of Washington, Seattle
Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA (United States)
National Inst. for Materials Science (NIMS), Tsukuba (Japan)
Univ. of Hong Kong (China)
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

The recent discovery of magnetism in atomically thin layers of van der Waals (vdW) crystals has created new opportunities for exploring magnetic phenomena in the two-dimensional (2D) limit. In most 2D magnets studied to date, the c-axis is an easy axis, so that at zero applied field the polarization of each layer is perpendicular to the plane. In this work, we demonstrate that atomically thin CrCl₃ is a layered antiferromagnetic insulator with an easy-plane normal to the c-axis, that is, the polarization is in the plane of each layer and has no preferred direction within it. Ligand-field photoluminescence at 870 nm is observed down to the monolayer limit, demonstrating its insulating properties. We investigate the in-plane magnetic order using tunneling magnetoresistance in graphene/CrCl₃/graphene tunnel junctions, establishing that the interlayer coupling is antiferromagnetic down to the bilayer. From the temperature dependence of the magnetoresistance, we obtain an effective magnetic phase diagram for the bilayer. Our findings suggest that CrCl₃ should be useful for studying the physics of 2D phase transitions and for making new kinds of vdW spintronic devices.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Cite

Export

Save

Research Organization:: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC05-00OR22725

OSTI ID:: 1561640

Journal Information:: Nano Letters, Vol. 19, Issue 6; ISSN 1530-6984

Publisher:: American Chemical SocietyCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Citation Metrics:

Cited by: 169 works

Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (39)

Controlling magnetism in 2D CrI3 by electrostatic doping Jiang, Shengwei; Li, Lizhong; Wang, Zefang Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 13, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-018-0135-x	journal	May 2018
Strong interfacial exchange field in the graphene/EuS heterostructure Wei, Peng; Lee, Sunwoo; Lemaitre, Florian Nature Materials, Vol. 15, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4603	journal	March 2016
Magnetic behavior and spin-lattice coupling in cleavable van der Waals layered ${CrCl}_{3}$ crystals McGuire, Michael A.; Clark, Genevieve; Kc, Santosh Physical Review Materials, Vol. 1, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.1.014001	journal	June 2017
Discovery of intrinsic ferromagnetism in two-dimensional van der Waals crystals Gong, Cheng; Li, Lin; Li, Zhenglu Nature, Vol. 546, Issue 7657 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature22060	journal	April 2017
Giant room-temperature magnetoresistance in single-crystal Fe/MgO/Fe magnetic tunnel junctions Yuasa, Shinji; Nagahama, Taro; Fukushima, Akio Nature Materials, Vol. 3, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1257	journal	October 2004
Magnetic Ordering in CrCl3 at the Phase Transition Kuhlow, B. physica status solidi (a), Vol. 72, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1002/pssa.2210720116	journal	July 1982
Gate-tunable room-temperature ferromagnetism in two-dimensional Fe3GeTe2 Deng, Yujun; Yu, Yijun; Song, Yichen Nature, Vol. 563, Issue 7729 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0626-9	journal	October 2018
Magnetoresistance in Double Spin Filter Tunnel Junctions with Nonmagnetic Electrodes and its Unconventional Bias Dependence Miao, Guo-Xing; Müller, Martina; Moodera, Jagadeesh S. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 102, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.076601	journal	February 2009
Magnon-assisted tunnelling in van der Waals heterostructures based on CrBr3 Ghazaryan, D.; Greenaway, M. T.; Wang, Z. Nature Electronics, Vol. 1, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-018-0087-z	journal	June 2018
Two-dimensional itinerant ferromagnetism in atomically thin Fe3GeTe2 Fei, Zaiyao; Huang, Bevin; Malinowski, Paul Nature Materials, Vol. 17, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-018-0149-7	journal	August 2018
Low-Temperature Sublattice Magnetization Of Antiferromagnetic Cr ${Cl}_{3}$ Narath, Albert Physical Review, Vol. 131, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRev.131.1929	journal	September 1963
Spin transfer torques Ralph, D. C.; Stiles, M. D. Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, Vol. 320, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmmm.2007.12.019	journal	April 2008
Role of the Vortex-Core Energy on the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless Transition in Thin Films of NbN Mondal, Mintu; Kumar, Sanjeev; Chand, Madhavi Physical Review Letters, Vol. 107, Issue 21 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.217003	journal	November 2011
Electron tunneling through atomically flat and ultrathin hexagonal boron nitride Lee, Gwan-Hyoung; Yu, Young-Jun; Lee, Changgu Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 99, Issue 24 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3662043	journal	December 2011
Coupling of Crystal Structure and Magnetism in the Layered, Ferromagnetic Insulator CrI ₃ McGuire, Michael A.; Dixit, Hemant; Cooper, Valentino R. Chemistry of Materials, Vol. 27, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1021/cm504242t	journal	January 2015
Probing magnetism in 2D van der Waals crystalline insulators via electron tunneling Klein, D. R.; MacNeill, D.; Lado, J. L. Science, Vol. 360, Issue 6394 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aar3617	journal	May 2018
Perpendicular switching of a single ferromagnetic layer induced by in-plane current injection Miron, Ioan Mihai; Garello, Kevin; Gaudin, Gilles Nature, Vol. 476, Issue 7359 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10309	journal	August 2011
Tunneling Spin Valves Based on Fe ₃ GeTe ₂ /hBN/Fe ₃ GeTe ₂ van der Waals Heterostructures Wang, Zhe; Sapkota, Deepak; Taniguchi, Takashi Nano Letters, Vol. 18, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b01278	journal	June 2018
Thin-film superconductor in an exchange field Hao, X.; Moodera, J. S.; Meservey, R. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 67, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.67.1342	journal	September 1991
One-Dimensional Electrical Contact to a Two-Dimensional Material Wang, L.; Meric, I.; Huang, P. Y. Science, Vol. 342, Issue 6158 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1244358	journal	October 2013
Ising-Type Magnetic Ordering in Atomically Thin FePS ₃ Lee, Jae-Ung; Lee, Sungmin; Ryoo, Ji Hoon Nano Letters, Vol. 16, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.6b03052	journal	November 2016
Ordering, metastability and phase transitions in two-dimensional systems Kosterlitz, J M; Thouless, D J Journal of Physics C: Solid State Physics, Vol. 6, Issue 7, p. 1181-1203 https://doi.org/10.1088/0022-3719/6/7/010	journal	April 1973
Strong room-temperature ferromagnetism in VSe2 monolayers on van der Waals substrates Bonilla, Manuel; Kolekar, Sadhu; Ma, Yujing Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 13, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-018-0063-9	journal	February 2018
2D materials and van der Waals heterostructures Novoselov, K. S.; Mishchenko, A.; Carvalho, A. Science, Vol. 353, Issue 6298 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aac9439	journal	July 2016
Layer-dependent ferromagnetism in a van der Waals crystal down to the monolayer limit Huang, Bevin; Clark, Genevieve; Navarro-Moratalla, Efrén Nature, Vol. 546, Issue 7657 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature22391	journal	June 2017
Ultrathin nanosheets of CrSiTe ₃ : a semiconducting two-dimensional ferromagnetic material Lin, Ming-Wei; Zhuang, Houlong L.; Yan, Jiaqiang Journal of Materials Chemistry C, Vol. 4, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1039/C5TC03463A	journal	January 2016
Spin-Wave Analysis of the Sublattice Magnetization Behavior of Antiferromagnetic and Ferromagnetic Cr ${Cl}_{3}$ Narath, Albert; Davis, H. L. Physical Review, Vol. 137, Issue 1A https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRev.137.A163	journal	January 1965
Field-Effect Tunneling Transistor Based on Vertical Graphene Heterostructures Britnell, L.; Gorbachev, R. V.; Jalil, R. Science, Vol. 335, Issue 6071 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1218461	journal	February 2012
Spin transfer torque devices utilizing the giant spin Hall effect of tungsten Pai, Chi-Feng; Liu, Luqiao; Li, Y. Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 101, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4753947	journal	September 2012
In-Plane Magnetization-Induced Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect Liu, Xin; Hsu, Hsiu-Chuan; Liu, Chao-Xing Physical Review Letters, Vol. 111, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.086802	journal	August 2013
A high-temperature ferromagnetic topological insulating phase by proximity coupling Katmis, Ferhat; Lauter, Valeria; Nogueira, Flavio S. Nature, Vol. 533, Issue 7604 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature17635	journal	May 2016
Experiments on simple magnetic model systems de Jongh, L. J.; Miedema, A. R. Advances in Physics, Vol. 23, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1080/00018739700101558	journal	January 1974
Magneto-elastic coupling in a potential ferromagnetic 2D atomic crystal Tian, Yao; Gray, Mason J.; Ji, Huiwen 2D Materials, Vol. 3, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1088/2053-1583/3/2/025035	journal	June 2016
Van der Waals engineering of ferromagnetic semiconductor heterostructures for spin and valleytronics Zhong, Ding; Seyler, Kyle L.; Linpeng, Xiayu Science Advances, Vol. 3, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1603113	journal	May 2017
Giant tunneling magnetoresistance in spin-filter van der Waals heterostructures Song, Tiancheng; Cai, Xinghan; Tu, Matisse Wei-Yuan Science, Vol. 360, Issue 6394 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aar4851	journal	May 2018
Hard magnetic properties in nanoflake van der Waals Fe3GeTe2 Tan, Cheng; Lee, Jinhwan; Jung, Soon-Gil Nature Communications, Vol. 9, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-04018-w	journal	April 2018
Ligand-field helical luminescence in a 2D ferromagnetic insulator Seyler, Kyle L.; Zhong, Ding; Klein, Dahlia R. Nature Physics, Vol. 14, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-017-0006-7	journal	December 2017
Enhancement of interlayer exchange in an ultrathin two-dimensional magnet Klein, Dahlia R.; MacNeill, David; Song, Qian Nature Physics, Vol. 15, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-019-0651-0	journal	September 2019
Evolution of interlayer and intralayer magnetism in three atomically thin chromium trihalides Kim, Hyun Ho; Yang, Bowen; Li, Siwen Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 116, Issue 23 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1902100116	journal	May 2019

Cited By (2)

Determining the phase diagram of atomically thin layered antiferromagnet CrCl3 Wang, Zhe; Gibertini, Marco; Dumcenco, Dumitru Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 14, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-019-0565-0	journal	November 2019
High mobility in a van der Waals layered antiferromagnetic metal Lei, Shiming; Lin, Jingjing; Jia, Yanyu Science Advances, Vol. 6, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aay6407	journal	February 2020

Similar Records

Proximity Spin–Orbit Torque on a Two-Dimensional Magnet within van der Waals Heterostructure: Current-Driven Antiferromagnet-to-Ferromagnet Reversible Nonequilibrium Phase Transition in Bilayer CrI₃

Journal Article · Wed Mar 04 00:00:00 EST 2020 · Nano Letters · OSTI ID:1561640

Dolui, Kapildeb; Petrović, Marko D.; Zollner, Klaus; +3 more

Giant tunneling magnetoresistance in spin-filter van der Waals heterostructures

Journal Article · Fri Jun 15 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · Science · OSTI ID:1561640

Song, Tiancheng; Cai, Xinghan; Tu, Matisse Wei-Yuan; +12 more

Topological Magnetic-Spin Textures in Two-Dimensional van der Waals Cr₂Ge₂Te₆

Journal Article · Tue Oct 29 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Nano Letters · OSTI ID:1561640

Han, Myung-Geun; Garlow, Joseph A.; Liu, Yu; +7 more

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
2D magnetic insulator
in-plane layered antiferromagnetism
magnetic tunnel junction
weak magnetic anisotropy
magnetic phase transition

Title: Atomically Thin CrCl3: An In-Plane Layered Antiferromagnetic Insulator

Citation Formats

References (39)

Cited By (2)

Similar Records

Related Subjects

Title: Atomically Thin CrCl₃: An In-Plane Layered Antiferromagnetic Insulator