Intercalation-Engineered Out-of-Plane Polarized van der Waals Ferromagnetic Superlattice with Room-Temperature Néel-Type Skyrmions

Superlattices (SLs) based on two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdW) materials, abbreviated as 2D-SLs, have garnered significant attention due to their customizable properties. 2D-SLs can be engineered by mechanical stacking or chemical intercalation to achieve diverse forms of symmetry breaking, resulting in exotic phenomena like the quantum anomalous Hall effect and topological magnetism. Hitherto, broken symmetries in 2D-SLs have been widely produced within lateral planes or three dimensions. However, symmetry breaking along the vertical direction, specifically as an out-of-plane one-dimensional (1D) polarized superlattice, has not yet been achieved. Here, we report a so far unseen out-of-plane 1D polarized vdW ferromagnetic superlattice achieved through an approach of two-step intercalation and de-embedding of chromium (Cr)-based 2D vdW magnets. The off-centering polarization of both intrinsic and intercalated Cr atoms in this (1 × 1 × 2) superstructure breaks the mirror symmetry vertically, yielding a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI). This results in high-density Néel-type magnetic skyrmions over a broad temperature range. Notably, sub-100 nm Néel-type skyrmions at room temperature (RT) can be achieved by tuning the Cr intercalation ratio, marking the first binary compound RT Néel-type skyrmionic vdW magnet. Our work expands the 2D-SL family with a class of out-of-plane 1D polarized ferromagnetic superlattice with tunable topological magnetism.

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Journal
ACS Nano
Published
2025-09-04
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.5c10466
Primary Topic
Graphene research and applications
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Intercalation-Engineered Out-of-Plane Polarized van der Waals Ferromagnetic Superlattice with Room-Temperature Néel-Type Skyrmions

Xuewen Fu, Zefang Li, Jun‐Ming Liu, Xiang Ma et al.
ACS Nano
Graphene research and applications
article

Intercalation-Engineered Out-of-Plane Polarized van der Waals Ferromagnetic Superlattice with Room-Temperature Néel-Type Skyrmions

Xuewen Fu, Zefang Li, Jun‐Ming Liu, Xiang Ma, Dapeng Yu, Lijun Wu, Minghui Qin, Xi Shen, Zhi‐Min Liao, Zhipeng Hou, Xingsen Gao, Huai Zhang, Richeng Yu, Junlin Wang, Can Liu, Yimei Zhu, Bin Xiang, Yue Hu, Deng Ying, Guanqi Li, Xuange Hu, Jiangteng Guo
article en

Abstract

Superlattices (SLs) based on two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdW) materials, abbreviated as 2D-SLs, have garnered significant attention due to their customizable properties. 2D-SLs can be engineered by mechanical stacking or chemical intercalation to achieve diverse forms of symmetry breaking, resulting in exotic phenomena like the quantum anomalous Hall effect and topological magnetism. Hitherto, broken symmetries in 2D-SLs have been widely produced within lateral planes or three dimensions. However, symmetry breaking along the vertical direction, specifically as an out-of-plane one-dimensional (1D) polarized superlattice, has not yet been achieved. Here, we report a so far unseen out-of-plane 1D polarized vdW ferromagnetic superlattice achieved through an approach of two-step intercalation and de-embedding of chromium (Cr)-based 2D vdW magnets. The off-centering polarization of both intrinsic and intercalated Cr atoms in this (1 × 1 × 2) superstructure breaks the mirror symmetry vertically, yielding a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI). This results in high-density Néel-type magnetic skyrmions over a broad temperature range. Notably, sub-100 nm Néel-type skyrmions at room temperature (RT) can be achieved by tuning the Cr intercalation ratio, marking the first binary compound RT Néel-type skyrmionic vdW magnet. Our work expands the 2D-SL family with a class of out-of-plane 1D polarized ferromagnetic superlattice with tunable topological magnetism.

ACS NanoVol. 19(36)
University of Science and Technology of China (CN), Guangdong University of Technology (CN), South China Normal University (CN), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN), Brookhaven National Laboratory (US), Peking University (CN), Nankai University (CN), Southern University of Science and Technology (CN), FZU ‒ Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (CZ), Yukhnovskii Institute for Condensed Matter Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (UA), CAS Key Laboratory of Urban Pollutant Conversion (CN), Division of Materials Science and Engineering (AU), Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures (CN), Institute of Applied Physics (RU), Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences (CN), National Laboratory for Superconductivity (CN), Nanjing University (CN)
National Natural Science Foundation of China, China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, Nankai University, Natural Science Foundation of Tianjin City, Higher Education Discipline Innovation Project, Guangzhou Municipal Science and Technology Bureau, National Key Research and Development Program of China, Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation of Guangdong Province, Brookhaven National Laboratory
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