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arXiv · 2105.04740

Pressure-enhanced ferromagnetism in layered CrSiTe3 flakes

Cheng Zhang·Yue Gu·Le Wang·Lianglong Huang·Ying Fu·Cai Liu·Shanmin Wang·Jia-Wei Mei·Xiaolong Zou·Jun-Feng Dai
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Abstract

The research on van der Waals (vdW) layered ferromagnets have promoted the development of nanoscale spintronics and applications. However, low-temperature ferromagnetic properties of these materials greatly hinder their applications. Here, we report pressure-enhanced ferromagnetic behaviours in layered CrSiTe3 flakes revealed by high-pressure magnetic circular dichroism (MCD) measurement. At ambient pressure, CrSiTe3 undergoes a paramagnetic-to-ferromagnetic phase transition at 32.8 K, with a negligible hysteresis loop, indicating a soft ferromagnetic behaviour. Under 4.6 GPa pressure, the soft ferromagnet changes into hard one, signalled by a rectangular hysteretic loop with remnant magnetization at zero field. Interestingly, with further increasing pressure, the coercive field (H_c) dramatically increases from 0.02 T at 4.6 GPa to 0.17 T at 7.8 GPa, and the Curie temperature (T_c^h: the temperature for closing the hysteresis loop) also increases from ~36 K at 4.6 GPa to ~138 K at 7.8 GPa. The influences of pressure on exchange interactions are further investigated by density functional theory calculations, which reveal that the in-plane nearest-neighbor exchange interaction and magneto-crystalline anisotropy increase simultaneously as pressure increases, leading to increased H_c and T_c^h in experiments. The effective interaction between magnetic couplings and external pressure offers new opportunities for both searching room-temperature layered ferromagnets and designing pressure-sensitive magnetic functional devices.

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Cheng Zhang, Yue Gu, Le Wang, Lianglong Huang, Ying Fu, Cai Liu, Shanmin Wang, Jia-Wei Mei, Xiaolong Zou, Jun-Feng Dai. 2021-05-11. Pressure-enhanced ferromagnetism in layered CrSiTe3 flakes. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c01994

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