arXiv subjects

Efrén Navarro-Moratalla

Publications and source records attributed to Efrén Navarro-Moratalla.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Proximity-Induced Spin Reorientation in Monolayer CrI$_3$ on Hexagonal WTe$_2$

Magnetic anisotropy controls the orientation and thermal stability of two-dimensional magnetic order. Predicting proximity-induced changes in anisotropy requires linking the electronic structure to microscopic magnetic interactions and finite-temperature behavior. Here we study monolayer CrI$_3$ on hexagonal WTe$_2$ using a first-principles-to-finite-temperature workflow centered on relativistic spin-Hamiltonian mapping. We find that WTe$_2$ reorients the CrI$_3$ magnetization from out-of-plane to in-plane and substantially enhances the magnetic ordering scale within the extracted spin models. Analysis of the extracted spin Hamiltonians shows that the reorientation is driven by a substrate-induced change in the balance between symmetric anisotropic exchange and onsite anisotropy. We establish a transferable workflow for proximity-controlled magnetism in two-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2025

Phase engineering of 1T$'$ and 1T CrS2 and Cr2S3 by MOCVD

Layered Cr-chalcogenides compounds offer a rich range of crystal phases with different magnetic properties some of which have been predicted only but not experimentally verified. Here we demonstrate a previously unreported crystal phase of CrS2, namely the distorted octahedral (1T$'$) structure, synthesized via metal-organic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD). We achieved the tuneable synthesis of either 1T$'$ or 1T phase CrS2. The structure were identified using polarized Raman spectroscopy, density functional perturbation theory (DFPT), as well as scanning electron diffraction (4D-STEM). 4D-STEM reveals that 1T$'$ crystals grow from an originally nucleated kinetically favoured 1T phase which then transform into the thermodynamically stable 1T$'$ phase. Magneto-optic Kerr imaging reveals that the 1T$'$ CrS2 crystals have soft ferromagnetic nature at low temperature. Our MOCVD growth of complex phases of 2D CrS2 with long-range magnetic order paves the way for the scalable synthesis of 2D magnets for ultrathin magnetic memories for logic-in-memory applications and spintronics.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2025

Strain Engineering of Magnetoresistance and Magnetic Anisotropy in CrSBr

Tailoring magnetoresistance and magnetic anisotropy in van der Waals magnetic materials is essential for advancing their integration into technological applications. In this regard, strain engineering has emerged as a powerful and versatile strategy to control magnetism at the two-dimensional (2D) limit. Here, we demonstrate that compressive biaxial strain significantly enhances the magnetoresistance and magnetic anisotropy of few-layer CrSBr flakes. Strain is efficiently transferred to the flakes from the thermal compression of a polymeric substrate upon cooling, as confirmed by temperature-dependent Raman spectroscopy. This strain induces a remarkable increase in the magnetoresistance ratio and in the saturation fields required to align the magnetization of CrSBr along each of its three crystalographic directions, reaching a twofold enhancement along the magnetic easy axis. This enhancement is accompanied by a subtle reduction of the Néel temperature by ~10K. Our experimental results are fully supported by first-principles calculations, which link the observed effects to a strain-driven modification in interlayer exchange coupling and magnetic anisotropy energy. These findings establish strain engineering as a key tool for fine-tuning magnetotransport properties in 2D magnetic semiconductors, paving the way for implementation in spintronics and information storage devices.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2023

Monolayer-to-mesoscale modulation of the optical properties in 2D CrI3 mapped by hyperspectral microscopy

Magnetic 2D materials hold promise to change the miniaturization paradigm of unidirectional photonic components. However, the integration of these materials in devices hinges on the accurate determination of the optical properties down to the monolayer limit, which is still missing. By using hyperspectral wide-field imaging we reveal a non-monotonic thickness dependence of the complex optical dielectric function in the archetypal magnetic 2D material CrI3 extending across different length scales: onsetting at the mesoscale, peaking at the nanoscale and decreasing again down to the single layer. These results portray a modification of the electronic properties of the material and align with the layer-dependent magnetism in CrI3, shedding light into the long-standing structural conundrum in this material. The unique modulation of the complex dielectric function from the monolayer up to more than 100 layers will be instrumental for understanding and manipulating the magneto-optical effects of magnetic 2D materials.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Strain Switching in van der Waals Heterostructures triggered by a Spin-Crossover Metal Organic Framework

Van der Waals heterostructures (vdWHs) combine different layered materials with properties of interest,1 such as two-dimensional (2D) semimetals, semiconductors, magnets or superconductors. These heterostructures provide the possibility of engineering new materials with emergent functionalities that are not accessible in another way. Beyond inorganic 2D materials, layered molecular materials remain still rather unexplored, with only few examples regarding their isolation as atomically thin-layers. By a proper chemical design, the physical properties of these systems can be tuned, as illustrated by the so-called spin-crossover (SCO) compounds, in which a spin transition can be induced by applying external stimuli like light, temperature, pressure or an electric field. Here, we report on vdWHs formed by SCO layers and few-layers graphene, being its properties modified by the strain concomitant to the spin transition. These molecular/inorganic vdWHs represent the deterministic incorporation of bistable molecular layers with other 2D materials of interest in the emergent field of straintronics.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2020

Deep-Learning-Enabled Fast Optical Identification and Characterization of Two-Dimensional Materials

Advanced microscopy and/or spectroscopy tools play indispensable role in nanoscience and nanotechnology research, as it provides rich information about the growth mechanism, chemical compositions, crystallography, and other important physical and chemical properties. However, the interpretation of imaging data heavily relies on the "intuition" of experienced researchers. As a result, many of the deep graphical features obtained through these tools are often unused because of difficulties in processing the data and finding the correlations. Such challenges can be well addressed by deep learning. In this work, we use the optical characterization of two-dimensional (2D) materials as a case study, and demonstrate a neural-network-based algorithm for the material and thickness identification of exfoliated 2D materials with high prediction accuracy and real-time processing capability. Further analysis shows that the trained network can extract deep graphical features such as contrast, color, edges, shapes, segment sizes and their distributions, based on which we develop an ensemble approach topredict the most relevant physical properties of 2D materials. Finally, a transfer learning technique is applied to adapt the pretrained network to other applications such as identifying layer numbers of a new 2D material, or materials produced by a different synthetic approach. Our artificial-intelligence-based material characterization approach is a powerful tool that would speed up the preparation, initial characterization of 2D materials and other nanomaterials and potentially accelerate new material discoveries.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2018

Enhanced Superconductivity and Suppression of Charge-density Wave Order in 2H-TaS$_2$ in the Two-dimensional Limit

As superconductors are thinned down to the 2D limit, their critical temperature $T_c$ typically decreases. Here we report the opposite behavior, a substantial enhancement of $T_c$ with decreasing thickness, in 2D crystalline superconductor 2H-TaS$_2$. Remarkably, in the monolayer limit, $T_c$ increases to 3.4 K compared to 0.8 K in the bulk. Accompanying this trend in superconductivity, we observe suppression of the charge-density wave (CDW) transition with decreasing thickness. To explain these trends, we perform electronic structure calculations showing that a reduction of the CDW amplitude results in a substantial increase of the density of states at the Fermi energy, which contributes to the enhancement of $T_c$. Our results establish ultra-thin 2H-TaS$_2$ as an ideal platform to study the competition between CDW order and superconductivity.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Probing magnetism in 2D van der Waals crystalline insulators via electron tunneling

Magnetic insulators are a key resource for next-generation spintronic and topological devices. The family of layered metal halides promises ultrathin insulating multiferroics, spin liquids, and ferromagnets, but new characterization methods are required to unlock their potential. Here, we report tunneling through the layered magnetic insulator CrI3 as a function of temperature and applied magnetic field. We electrically detect the magnetic ground state and inter-layer coupling and observe a field-induced metamagnetic transition. The metamagnetic transition results in magnetoresistances of 95%, 300%, and 550% for bilayer, trilayer, and tetralayer CrI3 barriers, respectively. We further measure inelastic tunneling spectra for our junctions, unveiling a rich spectrum of collective magnetic excitations (magnons) in CrI3. Our results establish vertical tunneling as a versatile probe of magnetism in atomically thin insulators.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Proposal for a dual spin filter based on [VO(C$_3$S$_4$O)$_2$]$^{2-}$

Polynuclear magnetic molecules often present dense transmission spectra with many overlapping conduction spin channels. Single-metal complexes display a sparser density of states, which in the presence of a fixed external magnetic field makes them interesting candidates for spin filtering. Here we perform a DFT study of a family of bis- and tris-dithiolate vanadium complexes sandwiched between Au(111) electrodes and demonstrate that [VO(C$_3$S$_4$O)$_2$]$^{2-}$ can behave as a dual spin filter. This means that an external stimulus can switch between the selective transmission of spin-up and spin-down carriers. By using an electrostatic gate as external stimulus we show that the onset for the spin-up conductance is at a voltage V$_g$ = -0.51 V but a small shift to V$_g$ = -0.63 V is capable of activating spin-down transport. For both cases, we estimate a large low-bias conductance (approx. 2 μS at Vbias < 50 mV) with excellent spin selectivity (> 99.5%). We conclude by commenting on the general molecular requirements for the chemical design of further such spintronics components.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Recent progress in the assembly of nanodevices and van der Waals heterostructures by deterministic placement of 2D materials

Designer heterostructures can now be assembled layer-by-layer with unmatched precision thanks to the recently developed deterministic placement methods to transfer two-dimensional (2D) materials. This possibility constitutes the birth of a very active research field on the so-called van der Waals heterostructures. Moreover, these deterministic placement methods also open the door to fabricate complex devices, which would be otherwise very difficult to achieve by conventional bottom-up nanofabrication approaches, and to fabricate fully-encapsulated devices with exquisite electronic properties. The integration of 2D materials with existing technologies such as photonic and superconducting waveguides and fiber optics is another exciting possibility. Here, we review the state-of-the-art of the deterministic placement methods, describing and comparing the different alternative methods available in the literature and we illustrate their potential to fabricate van der Waals heterostructures, to integrate 2D materials into complex devices and to fabricate artificial bilayer structures where the layers present a user-defined rotational twisting angle.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2016

Enhanced superconductivity in atomically thin TaS2

The ability to exfoliate layered materials down to the single layer limit has opened the opportunity to understand how a gradual reduction in dimensionality affects the properties of bulk materials. Here we use this top-down approach to address the problem of superconductivity in the two-dimensional limit. The transport properties of electronic devices based on 2H tantalum disulfide flakes of different thicknesses are presented. We observe that superconductivity persists down to the thinnest layer investigated (3.5 nm), and interestingly, we find a pronounced enhancement in the critical temperature from 0.5 K to 2.2 K as the layers are thinned down. In addition, we propose a tight-binding model, which allows us to attribute this phenomenon to an enhancement of the effective electron-phonon coupling constant. This work provides evidence that reducing dimensionality can strengthen superconductivity as opposed to the weakening effect that has been reported in other 2D materials so far.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2014

Fast and reliable identification of atomically thin layers of TaSe2 crystals

Deposition of clean and defect-free atomically thin two-dimensional crystalline flakes on surfaces by mechanical exfoliation of layered bulk materials has proven to be a powerful technique, but it requires a fast, reliable and non-destructive way to identify the atomically thin flakes among a crowd of thick flakes. In this work, we provide general guidelines to identify ultrathin flakes of TaSe2 by means of optical microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. Additionally, we determine the optimal substrates to facilitate the optical identification of atomically thin TaSe2 crystals. Experimental realization and isolation of ultrathin layers of TaSe2 enables future studies on the role of the dimensionality in interesting phenomena such as superconductivity and charge density waves.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗