A magnetoelectric model for sliding multiferroicity in CrI3 bilayers

Multiferroic materials that combine ferroelectric and magnetic orders provide a platform for exploring magnetoelectric coupling and for developing energy-efficient spintronic technologies [1]. Materials with strong magnetoelectric interactions enable non-volatile electric-field control of magnetism, offering a pathway toward low-power information processing [2,3]. Motivated by our experimental observations of sliding multiferroicity in hexagonally stacked CrI3, we developed an Ising-based magnetoelectric framework that captures the coupling between interlayer spin order and sliding ferroelectricity. This theoretical framework provides microscopic insight into the mechanism of sliding multiferroicity in van der Waals magnets and establishes a general route toward electric-field control of magnetism in atomically thin systems.

[1] Spaldin, N. A. & Ramesh, R. Advances in magnetoelectric multiferroics. Nat. Mater. 18, 203 212 (2019).

[2] Wang, Y. et al. Electric-field-driven non-volatile multi-state switching of individual skyrmions in a multiferroic heterostructure. Nat. Commun. 11, 3577 (2020).

[3] Ahn, E. C. 2D materials for spintronic devices. npj 2D Mater. Appl. 4, 17 (2020).