Enhanced coercivity and emergence of spin cluster glass state in 2D ferromagnetic material Fe3GeTe2

Abstract

Two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdW) magnetic materials with high coercivity and high $T_{\text{C}}$ are desired for spintronics and memory storage applications. Fe${}_3$GeTe${}_2$ (F3GT) is one such 2D vdW ferromagnet with a reasonably high $T_{\text{C}}$, but with a very low coercive field, $H_{\text{c}}$ ($\lesssim$100~Oe). Some of the common techniques of enhancing $H_{\text{c}}$ are by introducing pinning centers, defects, stress, doping, etc. They involve the risk of undesirable alteration of other important magnetic properties. Here we propose a very easy, robust, and highly effective method of phase engineering by altering the sample growth conditions to greatly enhance the intrinsic coercivity (7-10 times) of the sample, without compromising its fundamental magnetic properties ($T_{\text{C}}\simeq$210K). The phase-engineered sample (F3GT-2) comprises of parent F3GT phase with a small percentage of randomly embedded clusters of a coplanar FeTe (FT) phase. The FT phase serves as both mosaic pinning centers between grains of F3GT above its antiferromagnetic transition temperature ($T_{\text{C1}}\sim$70~K) and also as anti-phase domains below $T_{\text{C1}}$. As a result, the grain boundary disorder and metastable nature are greatly augmented, leading to highly enhanced coercivity, cluster spin glass, and meta-magnetic behavior. The enhanced coercivity ($\simeq$1~kOe) makes F3GT-2 much more useful for memory storage applications and is likely to elucidate a new route to tune useful magnetic properties. Moreover, this method is much more convenient than hetero-structure and other cumbersome techniques.

12 pages, 11 figures

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Cited by in corpus (2)

• Unusual magnetotransport and anomalous Hall effect in quasi-two-dimensional van der Waals ferromagnet Fe${}_4$GeTe${}_2$
• Disentangling the unusual magnetic anisotropy of the near-room-temperature ferromagnet Fe${}_4$GeTe${}_2$