Stimuli controlled electronic and magnetic properties of two-dimensional (2D) magnetic Janus materials

Magnetic van der Waals nanocrystals with intrinsic magnetic anisotropy provide an ideal platform for exploring magnetism in the low-dimensional limit [1,2]. In the post-graphene era, the discovery of magnetism in two-dimensional (2D) intrinsic nanomagnets has opened up exciting possibilities for low-dimensional spintronics [3,4,5]. In this work, we investigated three new 2D Janus nanomagnets VBrCl₂, VBrI₂, and VClBrI for the first time. First-principles-based density functional theory calculations reveal that these monolayers are intrinsically magnetic with indirect band gap semiconducting properties and further the magnetic and electronic properties of these monolayers are enhanced with the application of biaxial strain and electric field. We observe interesting electronic and magnetic phase transitions, tunable band gap, and supreme enhancement of the Curie temperature (∼ 686%). Large magnetic anisotropic energy (MAE) with a high magnetic moment and tunable band gap properties make these Janus materials useful candidates for future information storage, optoelectronics, and 2D spin circuit applications.

Ref:

(1) Kar, S., A. K. Nair, and S. J. Ray. "Supreme enhancement of ferromagnetism in a spontaneous-symmetry-broken 2D nanomagnet." Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics 54, no. 10 (2020): 105001.

(2) Nair, A. K., Shivani Rani, M. Venkata Kamalakar, and Soumya Jyoti Ray. "Bi-stimuli assisted engineering and control of magnetic phase in monolayer CrOCl." Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics 22, no. 22 (2020): 12806-12813.

(3) Nair, A. K., and S. J. Ray. "Electronic phase-crossover and room temperature ferromagnetism in a two-dimensional (2D) spin lattice." RSC advances 11, no. 2 (2021): 946-952.

(4) Kar, S., S. Rani, and S. J. Ray. "Stimuli assisted electronic, magnetic and optical phase control in CrOBr monolayer." Physica E: Low-dimensional Systems and Nanostructures 143 (2022): 115332.

(5) Mukherjee, T., S. Kar, and S. J. Ray. "Tunable electronic and magnetic properties of two-dimensional magnetic semiconductor VIBr2." Computational Materials Science 209 (2022): 111319.