Chiral Molecular Intercalation Enables Light-Controlled 2D Multiferroic Heterostructures
. Molecular insertion reshapes the interfacial electrostatic environment, induces charge redistribution, and expands the interlayer spacing, resulting in enhanced ferroic order, including a 5-fold increase in magnetic anisotropy energy (0.35→1.6 meV/Fe) and strengthened ferroelectric polarization. The resulting chiral CIPS-FGT heterostructures exhibit robust room-temperature magnetoelectric coupling (∼4.8% magnetization modulation) and enable helicity-dependent control of ferroic states under circularly polarized light, producing a 54.4% resistance modulation. This work establishes molecular intercalation as a general strategy for engineering light-responsive 2D multiferroics for optically tunable magnetoelectric and spintronic devices.
Authors
- Ryan Stadel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5671-5783)
- Yuchen Niu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-7920-6007)
- Cheng Gong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-1464-9571)
- Zhongxuan Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1664-4639)
- Joseph W. Bennett (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7971-4772)
- Shenqiang Ren (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9987-3316)
- Taylor J. Woehl (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4000-8280)
- G D Gu
- Efrain E. Rodriguez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6044-1543)
- Qimin Yan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3377-0314)
- Jiayue Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6304-3778)
- Joshua M. Little (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3601-3607)
- Yixiao Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7855-0780)
- Zhijie Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3594-5560)
- Zhenyao Fang
- Yong Hu
- Peng Yan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-9421-2883)
- Kai Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9413-6782)
- Qiang Li
- Mario Lopez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5694-0497)
- Po-Yen Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0310-4748)
Institutions
- Georgetown University (US)
- Brookhaven National Laboratory (US)
- Yukhnovskii Institute for Condensed Matter Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (UA)
- Stony Brook University (US)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- University of Maryland, College Park (US)
- University of Maryland, Baltimore County (US)
- Universidad del Noreste (MX)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nano Letters
- Published
- 2026-05-18
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.6c00485
- Primary Topic
- Multiferroics and related materials
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Defense Threat Reduction Agency
- Office of Science
- Quest High Performance Computing
- Division of Materials Research
- Basic Energy Sciences
- Brookhaven National Laboratory