Voltage control of magnetism in Fe<sub>3-x</sub>GeTe<sub>2</sub>/In<sub>2</sub>Se<sub>3</sub> van der Waals ferromagnetic/ferroelectric heterostructures.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 37699895.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-41382-8 and PMC identifier 10497543.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
We investigate the voltage control of magnetism in a van der Waals (vdW) heterostructure device consisting of two distinct vdW materials, the ferromagnetic Fe<sub>3-x</sub>GeTe<sub>2</sub> and the ferroelectric In<sub>2</sub>Se<sub>3</sub>. It is observed that gate voltages applied to the Fe<sub>3-x</sub>GeTe<sub>2</sub>/In<sub>2</sub>Se<sub>3</sub> heterostructure device modulate the magnetic properties of Fe<sub>3-x</sub>GeTe<sub>2</sub> with significant decrease in coercive field for both positive and negative voltages. Raman spectroscopy on the heterostructure device shows voltage-dependent increase in the in-plane In<sub>2</sub>Se<sub>3</sub> and Fe<sub>3-x</sub>GeTe<sub>2</sub> lattice constants for both voltage polarities. Thus, the voltage-dependent decrease in the Fe<sub>3-x</sub>GeTe<sub>2</sub> coercive field, regardless of the gate voltage polarity, can be attributed to the presence of in-plane tensile strain. This is supported by density functional theory calculations showing tensile-strain-induced reduction of the magnetocrystalline anisotropy, which in turn decreases the coercive field. Our results demonstrate an effective method to realize low-power voltage-controlled vdW spintronic devices utilizing the magnetoelectric effect in vdW ferromagnetic/ferroelectric heterostructures.