Tunable Giant Exchange Bias in an Intercalated Transition Metal Dichalcogenide

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a method to achieve giant, tunable exchange bias in Fe$_x$NbS$_2$ by exploiting the interplay of frustration, disorder, and coexisting antiferromagnetic order, surpassing conventional materials significantly.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to induce giant exchange bias in a transition metal dichalcogenide through interplay of frustration and disorder.

Findings

Exchange bias exceeds traditional materials by over two orders of magnitude.

Giant, tunable exchange bias achieved in Fe$_x$NbS$_2$.

Interplay of symmetry, disorder, and magnetic order controls exchange bias.

Abstract

The interplay of symmetry and quenched disorder leads to some of the most fundamentally interesting and technologically important properties of correlated materials. It also poses the most vexing of theoretical challenges. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the study of spin glasses. A spin glass is characterized by an ergodic landscape of states - an innumerable number of possibilities that are only weakly distinguished energetically, if at all. We show in the material Fe$_x$NbS$_2$, this landscape of states can be biased by coexisitng antiferromagnetic order. This process leads to a phenomenon of broad technological importance: giant, tunable exchange bias. We observe exchange biases that exceed those of conventional materials by more than two orders of magnitude. This work illustrates a novel route to giant exchange bias by leveraging the interplay of frustration and disorder in exotic materials.