One million percent tunnel magnetoresistance in a magnetic van der Waals heterostructure

TL;DR

This paper reports an extraordinarily large negative magnetoresistance effect in a van der Waals tunnel junction with CrI3, showing a nearly one million percent current increase under a magnetic field, advancing 2D spintronics.

Contribution

It demonstrates a record-high magnetoresistance in a 2D magnetic heterostructure, revealing new insights into ultrathin CrI3 magnetic states and potential spintronics applications.

Findings

Current increases by nearly one million percent under 2 Tesla.

Magnetoresistance arises from spin alignment change in CrI3 layers.

Results provide understanding of magnetic states in ultrathin CrI3.

Abstract

We report the observation of a very large negative magnetoresistance effect in a van der Waals tunnel junction incorporating a thin magnetic semiconductor, CrI3, as the active layer. At constant voltage bias, current increases by nearly one million percent upon application of a 2 Tesla field. The effect arises from a change between antiparallel to parallel alignment of spins across the different CrI3 layers. Our results elucidate the nature of the magnetic state in ultrathin CrI3 and present new opportunities for spintronics based on two-dimensional materials.