R&D: Nonreciprocal and Nonvolatile Electric-Field Switching of Magnetism in van der Waals Heterostructure Multiferroics

Nano Letters has published an article written by Yangliu Wu, National Engineering Research Center of Electromagnetic Radiation Control Materials, School of Electronic Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, People’s Republic of China, and Key Laboratory of Multi Spectral Absorbing Materials and Structures of Ministry of Education, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, China, Deju Zhang, Yan-Ning Zhang, Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, People’s Republic of China, Longjiang Deng, and Bo Peng, National Engineering Research Center of Electromagnetic Radiation Control Materials, School of Electronic Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, People’s Republic of China, and Key Laboratory of Multi Spectral Absorbing Materials and Structures of Ministry of Education, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, People’s Republic of China.

Abstract: “Multiferroic materials provide robust and efficient routes for the control of magnetism by electric fields, which have been diligently sought after for a long time. Construction of two-dimensional (2D) vdW multiferroics is a more exciting endeavor. To date, the nonvolatile manipulation of magnetism through ferroelectric polarization still remains challenging in a 2D vdW heterostructure multiferroic. Here, we report a van der Waals (vdW) heterostructure multiferroic comprising the atomically thin layered antiferromagnet (AFM) CrI₃ and ferroelectric (FE) α-In₂Se₃. We demonstrate anomalously nonreciprocal and nonvolatile electric-field control of magnetization by ferroelectric polarization. The nonreciprocal electric control originates from an intriguing antisymmetric enhancement of interlayer ferromagnetic coupling in the opposite ferroelectric polarization configurations of α-In₂Se₃. Our work provides numerous possibilities for creating diverse heterostructure multiferroics at the limit of a few atomic layers for multistage magnetic memories and brain-inspired in-memory computing.“