Ferromagnetism modulation by ultralow current in a two-dimensional polycrystalline molybdenum disulphide atomic layered structure

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 12; no. 1; p. 17199
• Main Authors: Muneta, Iriya, Shirokura, Takanori, Hai, Pham Nam, Kakushima, Kuniyuki, Tsutsui, Kazuo, Wakabayashi, Hitoshi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group 13.10.2022; Nature Publishing Group UK; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: Boundaries; Crystals; Grain boundaries; Molybdenum; Molybdenum disulfide; Power consumption
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-22113-3

Abstract Layered materials, such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides, are able to obtain new properties and functions through the modification of their crystal arrangements. In particular, ferromagnetism in polycrystalline MoS 2 is of great interest because the corresponding nonmagnetic single crystals exhibit spontaneous spin splitting only through the formation of grain boundaries. However, no one has reported direct evidence of this unique phenomenon thus far. Herein, we demonstrate ferromagnetism modulation by an ultralow current density < 10 3 A/cm 2 in 7.5-nm-thick polycrystalline MoS 2 , in which magnetoresistance shows three patterns according to the current intensity: wide dip, nondip and narrow dip structures. Since magnetoresistance occurs because of the interaction between the current of 4 d electrons in the bulk and localized 4 d spins in grain boundaries, this result provides evidence of the current modulation of ferromagnetism induced by grain boundaries. Our findings pave the way for the investigation of a novel method of magnetization switching with low power consumption for magnetic random access memories.