High mobility in a van der Waals layered antiferromagnetic metal

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of a layered van der Waals antiferromagnetic metal, GdTe3, with exceptionally high electron mobility, opening new avenues for magnetic twistronic and spintronic devices.

Contribution

We demonstrate that GdTe3 is a high-mobility layered magnetic material, with mobility surpassing all known magnetic vdW materials and comparable to black phosphorus.

Findings

Electron mobility exceeds 60,000 cm2 V-1 s-1 in GdTe3.

High magnetic order and mobility retained in ultrathin flakes.

GdTe3's mobility is comparable to black phosphorus and surpasses other magnetic vdW materials.

Abstract

Magnetic van der Waals (vdW) materials have been heavily pursued for fundamental physics as well as for device design. Despite the rapid advances, so far magnetic vdW materials are mainly insulating or semiconducting, and none of them possesses a high electronic mobility - a property that is rare in layered vdW materials in general. The realization of a magnetic high-mobility vdW material would open the possibility for novel magnetic twistronic or spintronic devices. Here we report very high carrier mobility in the layered vdW antiferromagnet GdTe3. The electron mobility is beyond 60,000 cm2 V-1 s-1, which is the highest among all known layered magnetic materials, to the best of our knowledge. Among all known vdW materials, the mobility of bulk GdTe3 is comparable to that of black phosphorus, and is only surpassed by graphite. By mechanical exfoliation, we further demonstrate that GdTe3 can be exfoliated to ultrathin flakes of three monolayers, and that the magnetic order and relatively high mobility is retained in approximately 20-nm-thin flakes.