Pd(100) ultrathin films show ferromagnetism induced by the confinement of electrons in the film, i.e., the quantum-well mechanism. In this study, we investigate the effect of the change in the interface structure between a Pd film and SrTiO3 substrate on quantum-well induced ferromagnetism using the structural phase transition of SrTiO3. During repeated measurement of temperature- dependent magnetization of the Pd/SrTiO3 system, cracks were induced in the Pd overlayer near the interface region by the structural phase transition of SrTiO3, thereby changing the film-thickness dependence of the magnetic moment. This is explained by the concept that as the magnetic moment in Pd(100) changed, so too did the thickness of the quantum-well. In addition, we observed that the ferromagnetism in the Pd(100) disappeared with the accumulation of cracks due to the repetition of the temperature cycle through the phase-transition temperature. This suggests that lowering the crystallinity of the interface structure by producing a large number of cracks has a negative effect on quantum-well induced ferromagnetism.
We use density functional theory calculations to show that the LaAlO3|SrTiO3 interface between insulating perovskite oxides is borderline in satisfying the Stoner criterion for itinerant ferromagnetism and explore other oxide combinations with a view to satisfying it more amply. The larger lattice parameter of an LaScO3|BaTiO3 interface is found to be less favorable than the greater interface distortion of LaAlO3|CaTiO3. Compared to LaAlO3|SrTiO3, the latter is predicted to exhibit robust magnetism with a larger saturation moment and a higher Curie temperature. Our results provide support for …
Complex oxide interfaces are a promising platform for studying a wide array of correlated electron phenomena in low-dimensions, including magnetism and superconductivity. The microscopic origin of these phenomena in complex oxide interfaces remains an open question. Here we investigate for the first time the magnetic properties of semi-insulating NdTiO$_3$/SrTiO$_3$ (NTO/STO) interfaces and present the first milli-Kelvin study of NTO/STO. The magnetoresistance (MR) reveals signatures of local ferromagnetic order and of spin-dependent thermally-activated transport, which are described quantitat…
Transition metals, Fe, Co and Ni, are the canonical systems for studying the effect of external perturbations on ferromagnetism. Among these, Ni stands out as it undergoes no structural phase transition under pressure. Here we have investigated the long-debated issue of pressure-induced magnetisation drop in Ni from first-principles. Our calculations confirm an abrupt quenching of magnetisation at high pressures, not associated with any structural phase transition. We find that the pressure substantially enhances the crystal field splitting of Ni-$3d$ orbitals, driving the system towards a new…
Two-dimensional (2D) ferromagnetic materials are considered as promising candidates for the future generations of spintronic devices. Yet, 2D materials with intrinsic ferromagnetism are scarce. High-throughput first-principles simulations are performed in order to screen 2D materials that present a non-magnetic to a ferromagnetic transition upon hole doping. A global evolutionary search is subsequently performed, in order to identify alternative possible atomic structures of the eligible candidates, and 122 materials exhibiting a hole-doping induced ferromagnetism are identified. Their energet…
Zigzag graphene nanoribb ons have spin-polarized edges, anti-ferromagnetically coupled in the ground state with total spin zero. Customarily, these ribbons are made ferromagnetic by producing an imbalance between the two sublattices. Here we show that zigzag ribbons can be ferromagnetic due to the presence of reconstructed divacancies near one edge. This effect takes place despite the divacancies are produced by removing two atoms from opposite sublattices, being balanced before reconstruction to 5-8-5 defects. We demonstrate that there is a strong interaction between the defect-localized and …
The origin of strain-induced ferromagnetism, which is robust regardless of the type and degree of strain in LaCoO3 (LCO) thin films, is enigmatic despite intensive research efforts over the past decade. Here, by combining scanning transmission electron microscopy with ab initio density functional theory plus U calculations, we report that the ferromagnetism does not emerge directly from the strain itself, but rather from the creation of compressed structural units within ferroelastically formed twin-wall domains. The compressed structural units are magnetically active with the rocksalt-type hi…
We demonstrate the anomalous Hall effect (AHE) in single-layer graphene exchange-coupled to an atomically flat yttrium iron garnet (YIG) ferromagnetic thin film. The anomalous Hall conductance has magnitude of ~0.09(2e2/h) at low temperatures and is measurable up to ~ 300 K. Our observations indicate not only proximity-induced ferromagnetism in graphene/YIG with large exchange interaction, but also enhanced spin-orbit coupling which is believed to be inherently weak in ideal graphene. The proximity-induced ferromagnetic order in graphene can lead to novel transport phenomena such as the quanti…
The septuple-atomic-layer $\mathrm{VSi_2P_4}$ with the same structure of experimentally synthesized $\mathrm{MoSi_2N_4}$ is predicted to be a spin-gapless semiconductor (SGS). In this work, the biaxial strain is applied to tune electronic properties of $\mathrm{VSi_2P_4}$, and it spans a wide range of properties upon the increasing strain from ferromagnetic metal (FMM) to SGS to ferromagnetic semiconductor (FMS) to SGS to ferromagnetic half-metal (FMHM). Due to broken inversion symmetry, the coexistence of ferromagnetism and piezoelectricity can be achieved in FMS $\mathrm{VSi_2P_4}$ with stra…
Monolayer van der Waals (vdW) magnets provide an exciting opportunity for exploring two-dimensional (2D) magnetism for scientific and technological advances, but the intrinsic ferromagnetism has only been observed at low temperatures. Here, we report the observation of room temperature ferromagnetism in manganese selenide (MnSe$_x$) films grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Magnetic and structural characterization provides strong evidence that in the monolayer limit, the ferromagnetism originates from a vdW manganese diselenide (MnSe$_2$) monolayer, while for thicker films it could originat…
Two-dimensional (2D) high-temperature ferromagnetic materials are important for spintronic application. Fortunately, a highly-air-stable PdSe$_2$ monolayer semiconductor has been made through exfoliation from the layered bulk material. It is very highly desirable to realize robust ferromagnetism, even half-metallic ferromagnetism (100\% spin polarization), in such excellent nonmagnetic monolayer semiconductors. Here, the first-principles investigation shows that the PdSe$_2$ monolayer can be made to attain Stoner ferromagnetism with the maximal Curie temperature reaching to 800K, and the hole …
In recent experiments, superconductivity and correlated insulating states were observed in twisted bilayer graphene (TBG) with small magic angles, which highlights the importance of the flat bands near Fermi energy. However, the moiré pattern of TBG consists of more than ten thousand carbon atoms that is not easy to handle with conventional methods. By density functional theory calculations, we obtain a flat band at E$_F$ in a novel carbon monolayer coined as cyclicgraphdiyne with the unit cell of eighteen atoms. By doping holes into cyclicgraphdiyne to make the flat band partially occupied, w…
Among Transition-Metal Dichalcogenides, mono and few-layers thick VSe2 has gained much recent attention following claims of intrinsic room-temperature ferromagnetism in this system, which have nonetheless proved controversial. Here, we address the magnetic and chemical properties of Fe/VSe2 heterostructure by combining element sensitive absorption spectroscopy and photoemission spectroscopy. Our x-ray magnetic circular dichroism results confirm recent findings that both native mono/few-layer and bulk VSe2 do not show any signature of an intrinsic ferromagnetic ordering. Nonetheless, we find th…
The introduction and control of ferromagnetism in graphene opens up a range of new directions for fundamental and applied studies. Several approaches have been pursued so far, such as introduction of defects, functionalization with adatoms, and shaping of graphene into nanoribbons with well-defined zigzag edges. A more robust and less invasive method utilizes the introduction of an exchange interaction by a ferromagnetic insulator in proximity with graphene. Here we present a direct measurement of the exchange interaction in room temperature ferromagnetic graphene. We study the spin transport …
The interplay among topology, superconductivity, and magnetism promises to bring a plethora of exotic and unintuitive behaviors in emergent quantum materials. The family of Fe-chalcogenide superconductors FeTexSe1-x are directly relevant in this context due to their intrinsic topological band structure, high-temperature superconductivity, and unconventional pairing symmetry. Despite enormous promise and expectation, the local magnetic properties of FeTexSe1-x remain largely unexplored, which prevents a comprehensive understanding of their underlying material properties. Exploiting nitrogen vac…
By combining Floquet theory with Green's function formalism, we present non-adiabatic quantum spin and charge pumping through a zigzag ferromagnetic graphene nanoribbon including a double-barriers structure driven weakly by two local $ac$ gate voltages operating with a phase-lag. Over a wide range of Fermi energies, interesting quantum pumping such as i) pure spin pumping with zero net charge pumping, ii) pure charge pumping and iii) fully spin polarized pumping can be achieved by tuning and manipulating driving frequency in the non-adiabatic regime. Spin polarized pumping which is measurable …
Towards spin selective electronics made of three coordinated carbon atoms, here we computationally propose robust and reversibly bias driven evolution of pristine undoped graphene nano-ribbons(GNR) into ferromagnetic-semiconductor, metal or a half metal, irrespective of their edge configurations. The evolution is a result of a rare ferromagnetic(FM) order emerging among nearest neighbouring(n-n) sites, in positively biased regions in their in-homogeneous bias unit-cells, in attempt to cooperatively minimise on-site Coulomb repulsion and kinetic energy, while maximising localization of electron…
The two-dimensional Wigner crystal (WC) occurs in the strongly interacting regime ($r_s \gg 1$) of the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG). The magnetism of a pure WC is determined by tunneling processes that induce multi-spin ring-exchange interactions, resulting in fully polarized ferromagnetism for large enough $r_s$. Recently, Hossain et al. [PNAS 117 (51) 32244-32250] reported the occurrence of a fully polarized ferromagnetic insulator at $r_s \gtrsim 35$ in an AlAs quantum well, but at temperatures orders of magnitude larger than the predicted exchange energies for the pure WC. Here, we …
Bi$_{2}$Se$_{3}$ is a well known 3D-topological insulators(TI) with a non-trivial Berry phase of $ \left(2n+1\right)π$ attributed to the topology of the band structure. The Berry phase shows non-topological deviations from $ \left(2n+1\right)π$ in presence of a perturbation that destroys time reversal symmetry and gives rise to a quantum system with massive Dirac fermions and finite band gap. Such a band gap opening is achieved on account of the exchange field of a ferromagnet or the intrinsic energy gap of a superconductor that influences the topological insulator surface states by virtue of …
