A team from the Institute of Molecular Science (ICMol-UV), located at the University of Valencia Science Park (PCUV) has taken a step forward in the field of twistronics, an area that brings together physics, chemistry and nanotechnology to search for and control new and extraordinary properties in graphene and other two-dimensional materials. The work is published in the journal Nature Materials
The study now published in Nature Materials shows, for the first time, that two-dimensional materials other than graphene can also present emerging and unexplored properties. Specifically, the team from the Institute of Molecular Science (ICMol), belonging to the scientific and academic area of the University of Valencia Science Park (PCUV), has discovered that a magnetic bilayer rotated at an angle of 90 degrees exhibits spectacular magneto-transport properties, such as the appearance of magnetic multistates with memory effects. This pioneering result portends a promising future for the design of new materials with 'on-demand' properties, of great interest in emerging technologies such as spintronics or quantum technologies.
The team that has developed this research is formed by Carla Boix-Constant, doctoral researcher at ICMol; Samuel Mañas-Valero, currently Marie Curie postdoctoral researcher at the Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands), and Eugenio Coronado, professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Valencia and researcher at ICMol. The University of Edinburgh has also participated in the work.
Twistronics is an emerging field that explores the ability of two-dimensional materials to endow themselves, when their stacked layers are rotated, with new electrical, magnetic and optical properties. One of the most unique results in this field was the observation of superconductivity in graphene (2019) when two stacked layers of this lamellar material from graphite were rotated at a small angle.
Reference:
Multistep magnetization switching in orthogonally twisted ferromagnetic monolayers. Carla Boix-Constant, Sarah Jenkins, Ricardo Rama-Eiroa, Elton J. G. Santos, Samuel Mañas-Valero & Eugenio Coronado. Nature Materials.