Tailorable multifunctionalities in ultrathin 2D Bi-based layered supercell structures

Zihao He; Xingyao Gao; Di Zhang; Ping Lu; Xuejing Wang; Matias Kalaswad; Bethany X Rutherford; Haiyan Wang

doi:10.1039/d1nr04975e

Tailorable multifunctionalities in ultrathin 2D Bi-based layered supercell structures

Nanoscale. 2021 Oct 14;13(39):16672-16679. doi: 10.1039/d1nr04975e.

Authors

Zihao He¹, Xingyao Gao², Di Zhang², Ping Lu³, Xuejing Wang², Matias Kalaswad¹, Bethany X Rutherford², Haiyan Wang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2045, USA. hwang00@purdue.edu.
² School of Materials Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2045, USA.
³ Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, 87185, USA.

PMID: 34590640
DOI: 10.1039/d1nr04975e

Abstract

Two-dimensional (2D) materials with robust ferromagnetic behavior have attracted great interest because of their potential applications in next-generation nanoelectronic devices. Aside from graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides, Bi-based layered oxide materials are a group of prospective candidates due to their superior room-temperature multiferroic response. Here, an ultrathin Bi₃Fe₂Mn₂O_10+δ layered supercell (BFMO322 LS) structure was deposited on an LaAlO₃ (LAO) (001) substrate using pulsed laser deposition. Microstructural analysis suggests that a layered supercell (LS) structure consisting of two-layer-thick Bi-O slabs and two-layer-thick Mn/Fe-O octahedra slabs was formed on top of the pseudo-perovskite interlayer (IL). A robust saturation magnetization value of 129 and 96 emu cm^-3 is achieved in a 12.3 nm thick film in the in-plane (IP) and out-of-plane (OP) directions, respectively. The ferromagnetism, dielectric permittivity, and optical bandgap of the ultrathin BFMO films can be effectively tuned by thickness and morphology variation. In addition, the anisotropy of all ultrathin BFMO films switches from OP dominating to IP dominating as the thickness increases. This study demonstrates the ultrathin BFMO film with tunable multifunctionalities as a promising candidate for novel integrated spintronic devices.