Tunneling current-controlled spin states in few-layervan der Waals magnets

Project Summary: 2D magnets is establishing a new paradigm in spintronics, with a key challenge being the
effective control of spin states through electrical methods. Recently, the Tian group at the University of Wyoming
demonstrated, for the first time, the ability to control unidirectional transitions between two spin states in CrI₃-based tunnel junctions using tunneling currents. By applying relatively low tunneling currents, they successfully manipulated spin-parallel (SP) and spin-antiparallel (SAP) states, with the switching direction determined by the polarity and amplitude of the bias. Supported by theoretical calculations, this phenomenon is explained by a mechanism involving non-equilibrium spin accumulation in the graphene electrodes during the tunneling process. Furthermore, at slightly higher biases, they observed stochastic switching between two or three metastable spin states in few-layer CrI₃, with the number of states depending on the number of layers. Notably, these CrI₃ tunnel junction devices demonstrate exceptional energy efficiency, with power consumption approximately three orders of magnitude lower than that of traditional magnetic tunnel junction.

Publication: ZhuangEn Fu et al., Nat. Commun. 15, 3630 (2024).
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-47820-5

2DCC Role:This research resulted from a close collaboration between 2DCC and Prof. Tian. The 2DCC’s ability of growing high-quality CrI3 crystals made this impactful work possible.