Journal des nanosciences : recherche actuelle

Magnetism in 2D Flatlands

Abstract

Eui-Hyeok Yang

The two-dimensional (2D) atomic crystals exhibiting magnetic properties provide an ideal platform for exploring new physical phenomena in the 2D limit. This new approach represents a substantial shift in our ability to control and investigate nanoscale phases. Experimental studies have shown doping of dissimilar atoms into transition metal dichalcogenides to create 2D dilute magnetic semiconductors, which are a promising candidate for spintronics applications. The success of these previous attempts, however, was fairly limited, resulting in either a Curie temperature well below room temperature or random local clustering of magnetic precipitations, i.e., lacking uniformity for integration into devices. Here our work demonstrates a 2D dilute magnetic semiconductor at room temperature via an in situ synthesis and characterization of Fe-doped MoS2 monolayers. We simultaneously achieve the in situ doping of Fe and the growth of MoS2 monolayers via low-pressure vapor deposition growth. Using advanced characterization techniques, we show that Fe incorporates substitutionally into Mo lattice sites, and probe ferromagnetism at room temperature. This new class of van der Waals ferromagnets finds critical applications, including on-chip magnetic manipulation of quantum states or in spintronics.