Room-Temperature and Tunable Tunneling Magnetoresistance in Fe3GaTe2-Based 2D van der Waals Heterojunctions

Wen Jin; Gaojie Zhang; Hao Wu; Li Yang; Wenfeng Zhang; Haixin Chang

doi:10.1021/acsami.3c06167

Room-Temperature and Tunable Tunneling Magnetoresistance in Fe₃GaTe₂-Based 2D van der Waals Heterojunctions

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2023 Aug 2;15(30):36519-36526. doi: 10.1021/acsami.3c06167. Epub 2023 Jul 19.

Authors

Wen Jin^{1

2}, Gaojie Zhang^{1

2}, Hao Wu^{1

2

3}, Li Yang^{1

2}, Wenfeng Zhang^{1

2

3}, Haixin Chang^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Center for Joining and Electronic Packaging, State Key Laboratory of Material Processing and Die & Mold Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China.
² Shenzhen R&D Center of Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Shenzhen 518000, China.
³ Wuhan National High Magnetic Field Center and Institute for Quantum Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China.

PMID: 37466234
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.3c06167

Abstract

Magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) based on van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures with sharp and clean interfaces on the atomic scale are essential for the application of next-generation spintronics. However, the lack of room-temperature intrinsic ferromagnetic crystals with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy has greatly hindered the development of vertical MTJs. The discovery of room-temperature intrinsic ferromagnetic two-dimensional (2D) crystal Fe₃GaTe₂ has solved the problem and greatly facilitated the realization of practical spintronic devices. Here, we demonstrate a room-temperature MTJ based on a Fe₃GaTe₂/WS₂/Fe₃GaTe₂ heterostructure for the first time. The tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) ratio is up to 213% with a high spin polarization of 72% at 10 K, the highest ever reported in Fe₃GaTe₂-based MTJs up to now. A tunneling spin-valve signal robustly persists at room temperature (300 K) with a bias current down to 10 nA. Moreover, the spin polarization can be modulated by bias current and the TMR shows a sign reversal at a large bias current. Our work sheds light on the potential application of low-energy consumption in all-2D vdW spintronics and offers alternative routes for the electronic control of spintronic devices.

Keywords: MTJ; heterojunction; room temperature; tunable; two-dimensional; van der Waals.