Fabrication and Characterization of Metallic Thiophosphate Heterostructures: A Path Towards Magnetoelectric Transport Devices

In this talk I report our progress towards the development of van der Waals heterostructures with coupled magnetoelectric properties. Our approach focuses on the MM'P₂S₆ (MM' = CuCr, CuIn, MnCo, MnNi, etc.) family of bi-metallic thiophosphates. These materials are generally Mott or charge-transfer insulators desirable for their diverse functional properties¹; have good air stability; and can be easily grown by our newly developed reactive flux method. I show that these materials exfoliate down to the few layer regime; are amenable to dry transfer stacking; plasma and ion etching; and transport device fabrication in combination with transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). A particular focus will be transport approaches towards gate control and detection of magnetization in such systems. Additionally, I present attempts to use TMD heterostructures to probe magnetic ordering in MnNiP₂S₆, a new material whose parent compounds MnPS₃ and NiPS₃ obey dissimilar magnetic orderings². Potential functionalizations such as dark-matter detection through the magnetoelectric effect will also be discussed.

[1] M. A. Susner, Adv. Mater., 29, 2017
[2] P. A. Joy, Phys. Rev. B, 46, 1992