Stability of the In-Plane Room Temperature van der Waals Ferromagnet Chromium Ditelluride and Its Conversion to Chromium-Interleaved CrTe${}_2$ Compounds

Abstract

Van der Waals magnetic materials are building blocks for novel kinds of spintronic devices and playgrounds for exploring collective magnetic phenomena down to the two-dimensional limit. Chromium-tellurium compounds are relevant in this perspective. In particular, the 1$T$ phase of CrTe${}_2$ has been argued to have a Curie temperature above 300~K, a rare and desirable property in the class of lamellar materials, making it a candidate for practical applications. However, recent literature reveals a strong variability in the reported properties, including magnetic ones. Using electron microscopy, diffraction and spectroscopy techniques, together with local and macroscopic magnetometry approaches, our work sheds new light on the structural, chemical and magnetic properties of bulk 1$T$-CrTe${}_2$ exfoliated in the form of flakes having a thickness ranging from few to several tens of nanometers. We unambiguously establish that 1$T$-CrTe${}_2$ flakes are ferromagnetic above room temperature, have an in-plane easy axis of magnetization, low coercivity, and we confirm that their Raman spectroscopy signatures are two modes, $E_{2\text{g}}$ (103.5~cm${}^{-1}$) and $A_{1\text{g}}$ (136.5~cm${}^{-1}$). We also prove that thermal annealing causes a phase transformation to monoclinic Cr${}_5$Te${}_8$ and, to a lesser extent, to trigonal Cr${}_5$Te${}_8$. In sharp contrast with 1$T$-CrTe${}_2$, none of these compounds have a Curie temperature above room temperature, and they both have perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. Our findings reconcile the apparently conflicting reports in the literature and open opportunities for phase-engineered magnetic properties.

References in corpus (6)

• Magnetic 2D materials and heterostructures
• Ising-Type Magnetic Ordering in Atomically Thin FePS3
• Skyrmion Lattice in Two-Dimensional Chiral Magnet
• In-plane magnetic domains and Néel-like domain walls in thin flakes of the room temperature CrTe${}_2$ van der Waals ferromagnet
• Covalent 2D Cr${}_2$Te${}_3$ ferromagnet
• Characterization of room-temperature in-plane magnetization in thin flakes of CrTe${}_2$ with a single spin magnetometer

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Bilayer orthogonal ferromagnetism in CrTe${}_2$-based van der Waals system
• Efficient Soft-Chemical Synthesis of Large van-der-Waals Crystals of the Room-Temperature Ferromagnet 1T-CrTe2
• Parameter free treatment of a layered correlated van der Waals magnet: CrPS${}_4$
• Laser patterning of the room temperature van der Waals ferromagnet 1$T$-CrTe${}_2$
• Many-body electronic structure, self-doped double-exchange, and Hund metallicity in 1T-CrTe2 bulk and monolayer