Electric-field switching of interlayer magnetic order in a van der waals heterobilayer via spin-electric potential.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 41285801.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-025-65371-1 and PMC identifier 12644534.
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Abstract
Electric-field control of magnetic order is of significant physical interest and holds great potential for spintronic applications. However, it has rarely been reported in two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdW) magnets, primarily due to the inherently weak coupling between spin order and electric fields. Here we propose a general spin-electric potential mechanism that significantly enhances the magnetoelectric coupling. The spin-electric potential refers to the spin-order-dependent electric dipole potential energy originating from the polar spin interactions in asymmetric magnetic systems. Due to the additional spin-electric potential, the relative stability of different interlayer spin orders in a vdW heterobilayer can be significantly manipulated by external electric fields. Based on this mechanism, we design a series of 2D vdW all-magnetic heterobilayers, such as CrI<sub>3</sub>/MnSe<sub>2</sub>, in which a transition from interlayer spin-parallel (SP) to spin-antiparallel (SAP) order is realized by a feasible electric field of around 0.1 V/Å. Our findings not only reveal a novel magnetoelectric coupling mechanism, but also present a practical strategy for achieving pure electric field switching of magnetic order.