Persistence of large and gate-tunable anisotropic magnetoresistance in an atomically thin antiferromagnet
Cheol-Yeon Cheon, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Alberto F. Morpurgo, Dmitry Lebedev
TLDR
Researchers demonstrated gate-tunable anisotropic magnetoresistance in atomically thin NiPS3, enabling electrical readout of antiferromagnetic states.
Key contributions
- Demonstrated electrical readout of Néel vector down to 1.3 nm (two-layer) in NiPS3.
- Identified two distinct AMR contributions in NiPS3, dominant at low and high charge densities.
- Achieved full gate control over AMR, enabling tunability of both its magnitude and sign.
- Established vdW antiferromagnets as a rich platform for studying AMR in the ultrathin limit.
Why it matters
This work overcomes challenges in electrically probing ultrathin antiferromagnets, crucial for advancing AFM spintronics. The gate-tunable AMR in 2D vdW materials opens new avenues for designing multifunctional spintronic devices.
Original Abstract
Anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) offers a robust electrical readout of antiferromagnetic (AFM) states, playing a central role in the rapidly advancing field of AFM spintronics. Despite its great versatility, electrical probing of the Néel vector via AMR remains challenging in the ultrathin limit due to interface disorder and reduced dimensionality. Here, we demonstrate electrical readout of the Néel vector down to 1.3 nm (two layers) in the two-dimensional van der Waals (vdW) AFM semiconductor NiPS3. Leveraging spin-flop-mediated rotation of the Néel vector and using both transistor and tunnel-junction device geometries, we identify two distinct AMR contributions in NiPS3, that dominate at low and high charge densities, respectively. We achieve full gate control over these contributions, enabling tunability of both the magnitude and sign of magnetoresistance. Our results establish semiconducting vdW antiferromagnets as a rich platform for studying AMR in the ultrathin limit, opening new avenues for multifunctional AFM spintronic devices.
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