Coercivity enhancement of Cr₃Te₄ in a magnetic van der Waals heterostructure

Layered transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) are important as a material system in which various 2D physical properties can emerge by reducing the layer number down to the monolayer limit. Since each layer are bound by weak van der Waals (vdW) forces, good quality heterointerfaces can be realized. We have been working on the fabrication of 2D TMDCs and their heterostructures by MBE and exploring mainly transport physical properties. Particularly in the magnetic vdW heterostructures V₅Se₈/NbSe₂, we recently discovered that the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy is induced in originally isotropic V₅Se₈ by the Zeeman-type spin-orbit interaction (SOI) unique to 2D NbSe₂ [1]. In addition, we also verified that the emergent ferrovalley/ferromagnetic state is induced in originally non-magnetic NbSe₂ [2].

In this work, we focus on the magnetic vdW heterostructures made of ferromagnetic Cr₃Te₄ and TaSe₂. As opposed to V₅Se₈, Cr₃Te₄ originally exhibits the strong perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. On the other hand, TaSe₂ also hosts Zeeman-type SOI similar to 2D NbSe₂ even in a bulk form with larger magnitude. In the presentation, we will show and discuss the results by comparing with the interface effects observed in the V₅Se₈/NbSe₂ heterostructures [1,2].

[1] H. Matsuoka, et al., Nano Lett. 21, 1807 (2021).

[2] H. Matsuoka, et al., Nat. Commun. 13, 5129 (2022).