Pressure Tuning of Ferromagnetism in the van der Waals Layered β-UTe3 Material

The discovery of local-moment magnetism in van der Waals (vdW) semiconductors down to the monolayer limit has reshaped our understanding of two-dimensional (2D) magnetic systems and opened new opportunities for microelectronic and optoelectronic devices. 2D magnetism is an area of interest observed in vdW transition-metal compounds such as Cr₂Ge₂Te₆, CrI₃, and CrSBr. In contrast, exfoliatable 2D f-electron materials, such as CeSiI, provide a platform to explore how magnetic order and/or the hybridization between localized f-electron and conduction states manifests in the 2D limit. However, very few 2D f-electron materials have been studied. Recently, the vdW heavy fermion material β-UTe₃ was investigated both in bulk and in the 2D limit.  Bulk thermodynamic, magnetic, and transport measurements reveal a Curie temperature of T_c~15 K with an enhanced specific heat coefficient of γ~130 mJ/mol-K². Interestingly, optical and magnetic measurements on exfoliated single layer β-UTe₃ exhibited an enhanced Curie temperature T_c~35 K, more than twice that of the bulk. In this talk, I will discuss our efforts to suppress the ferromagnetism and explore a possible quantum critical point in b-UTe₃ through electrical resistivity and Hall effect measurements under pressure.