Introducing CVD WS₂in Magnetic Tunnel Junctions

The use of the spin variable as the vector of information has been largely applied from hard drives read-heads to MRAMs, with novel propositions beyond spin-logics for neuromorphic, stochastic and quantum calculations. While very recent, the introduction of 2D materials such as graphene and the 2D insulator h-BN in Magnetic Tunnel Junctions (MTJs) vertical spin valves has already shown some promising properties[1]. The advent of the 2D semiconductors families opened new opportunities for further tailoring of spintronics properties[2]. Here, we will present results on the scarcely studied WS₂ 2D semiconductor for spintronics. We will detail a protocol to fabricate spin valves based on CVD grown WS₂, with step by step characterizations in support (Raman spectroscopy, photoluminescence, AFM). We will then present our spin transport measurements obtained in a CVD WS₂ based MTJ. Our measured MR signals, above state of the art for 2D semiconductor based MTJs, validates our fabrication approach. These results open the way to the integration of different members of the very large 2D semiconductor families, TMDC and beyond, in order to reveal their spin transport properties in MTJs.
[1] Piquemal-Banci et al. J. Phys. D 50, 203002 (2017)
[2] Galbiati et al. Phys. Rev. Appl. 12, 044022 (2019)