Two-dimensional itinerant ferromagnetism in atomically thin Fe3GeTe2

Zaiyao Fei; Bevin Huang; Paul Malinowski; Wenbo Wang; Tiancheng Song; Joshua Sanchez; Wang Yao; Di Xiao; Xiaoyang Zhu; Andrew F. May; Weida Wu; David H. Cobden; Jiun Haw Chu; Xiaodong Xu

doi:10.1038/s41563-018-0149-7

Two-dimensional itinerant ferromagnetism in atomically thin Fe₃GeTe₂

Zaiyao Fei, Bevin Huang, Paul Malinowski, Wenbo Wang, Tiancheng Song, Joshua Sanchez, Wang Yao, Di Xiao, Xiaoyang Zhu, Andrew F. May, Weida Wu, David H. Cobden, Jiun Haw Chu, Xiaodong Xu

Correlated Electron Materials

Research output: Contribution to journal › Letter › peer-review

1135 Scopus citations

Abstract

Discoveries of intrinsic two-dimensional (2D) ferromagnetism in van der Waals (vdW) crystals provide an interesting arena for studying fundamental 2D magnetism and devices that employ localized spins^1–4. However, an exfoliable vdW material that exhibits intrinsic 2D itinerant magnetism remains elusive. Here we demonstrate that Fe₃GeTe₂ (FGT), an exfoliable vdW magnet, exhibits robust 2D ferromagnetism with strong perpendicular anisotropy when thinned down to a monolayer. Layer-number-dependent studies reveal a crossover from 3D to 2D Ising ferromagnetism for thicknesses less than 4 nm (five layers), accompanied by a fast drop of the Curie temperature (T_C) from 207 K to 130 K in the monolayer. For FGT flakes thicker than ~15 nm, a distinct magnetic behaviour emerges in an intermediate temperature range, which we show is due to the formation of labyrinthine domain patterns. Our work introduces an atomically thin ferromagnetic metal that could be useful for the study of controllable 2D itinerant ferromagnetism and for engineering spintronic vdW heterostructures⁵.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	778-782
Number of pages	5
Journal	Nature Materials
Volume	17
Issue number	9
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-018-0149-7
State	Published - Sep 1 2018

Funding

The authors thank M. den Nijs for the helpful discussion. The work at the University of Washington is mainly supported by NSF MRSEC 1719797. B.H. and D.X. are supported by Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division (DE-SC0012509). W.Y. is supported by the Croucher Foundation (Croucher Innovation Award) and the HKU ORA. Synthesis efforts at ORNL (AFM) were supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division. X.X. and X.Z. acknowledge NSF MRSECs at the University of Washington (DMR-1719797) and the University of Columbia (DMR-1420634) for supporting the exchange visit. X.X. and J.H.C. acknowledge the support from the State of Washington funded Clean Energy Institute and from the Boeing Distinguished Professorship in Physics. Work at Rutgers (W. Wang and W. Wu) was supported by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering, US Department of Energy under Award number DE-SC0018153.

Funders	Funder number
HKU ORA
State of Washington
National Science Foundation	MRSEC 1719797
U.S. Department of Energy
Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences	1420634, 1719797
Office of Science
Basic Energy Sciences
Columbia University	DMR-1420634
University of Washington	DMR-1719797
Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering	DE-SC0018153, DE-SC0012509
Croucher Foundation

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title = "Two-dimensional itinerant ferromagnetism in atomically thin Fe3GeTe2",

abstract = "Discoveries of intrinsic two-dimensional (2D) ferromagnetism in van der Waals (vdW) crystals provide an interesting arena for studying fundamental 2D magnetism and devices that employ localized spins1–4. However, an exfoliable vdW material that exhibits intrinsic 2D itinerant magnetism remains elusive. Here we demonstrate that Fe3GeTe2 (FGT), an exfoliable vdW magnet, exhibits robust 2D ferromagnetism with strong perpendicular anisotropy when thinned down to a monolayer. Layer-number-dependent studies reveal a crossover from 3D to 2D Ising ferromagnetism for thicknesses less than 4 nm (five layers), accompanied by a fast drop of the Curie temperature (TC) from 207 K to 130 K in the monolayer. For FGT flakes thicker than ~15 nm, a distinct magnetic behaviour emerges in an intermediate temperature range, which we show is due to the formation of labyrinthine domain patterns. Our work introduces an atomically thin ferromagnetic metal that could be useful for the study of controllable 2D itinerant ferromagnetism and for engineering spintronic vdW heterostructures5.",

author = "Zaiyao Fei and Bevin Huang and Paul Malinowski and Wenbo Wang and Tiancheng Song and Joshua Sanchez and Wang Yao and Di Xiao and Xiaoyang Zhu and May, {Andrew F.} and Weida Wu and Cobden, {David H.} and Chu, {Jiun Haw} and Xiaodong Xu",

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AU - Sanchez, Joshua

AU - Yao, Wang

AU - Xiao, Di

AU - Zhu, Xiaoyang

AU - May, Andrew F.

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AU - Cobden, David H.

AU - Chu, Jiun Haw

AU - Xu, Xiaodong

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N2 - Discoveries of intrinsic two-dimensional (2D) ferromagnetism in van der Waals (vdW) crystals provide an interesting arena for studying fundamental 2D magnetism and devices that employ localized spins1–4. However, an exfoliable vdW material that exhibits intrinsic 2D itinerant magnetism remains elusive. Here we demonstrate that Fe3GeTe2 (FGT), an exfoliable vdW magnet, exhibits robust 2D ferromagnetism with strong perpendicular anisotropy when thinned down to a monolayer. Layer-number-dependent studies reveal a crossover from 3D to 2D Ising ferromagnetism for thicknesses less than 4 nm (five layers), accompanied by a fast drop of the Curie temperature (TC) from 207 K to 130 K in the monolayer. For FGT flakes thicker than ~15 nm, a distinct magnetic behaviour emerges in an intermediate temperature range, which we show is due to the formation of labyrinthine domain patterns. Our work introduces an atomically thin ferromagnetic metal that could be useful for the study of controllable 2D itinerant ferromagnetism and for engineering spintronic vdW heterostructures5.

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Two-dimensional itinerant ferromagnetism in atomically thin Fe₃GeTe₂

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