Electric-field switching of interlayer magnetic order in a van der waals heterobilayer via spin-electric potential

作者：Chengxi Huang, Jinzhe Han, Jing Wang, Jintao Jiang, Ziyang Qu, Fang Wu, Ang Li, Yi Wan, Kaiyou Wang, Erjun Kan · 发表于：Nature Communications · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1038/s41467-025-65371-1 · 被引用次数：2 · 研究领域：2D Materials and Applications、Topological Materials and Phenomena、Graphene research and applications

Electric-field control of magnetic order is of significant physical interest and holds great potential for spintronic applications. However, it has rarely been reported in two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdW) magnets, primarily due to the inherently weak coupling between spin order and electric fields. Here we propose a general spin-electric potential mechanism that significantly enhances the magnetoelectric coupling. The spin-electric potential refers to the spin-order-dependent electric dipole potential energy originating from the polar spin interactions in asymmetric magnetic systems. Due to the additional spin-electric potential, the relative stability of different interlayer spin orders in a vdW heterobilayer can be significantly manipulated by external electric fields. Based on this mechanism, we design a series of 2D vdW all-magnetic heterobilayers, such as CrI3/MnSe2, in which a transition from interlayer spin-parallel (SP) to spin-antiparallel (SAP) order is realized by a feasible electric field of around 0.1 V/Å. Our findings not only reveal a novel magnetoelectric coupling mechanism, but also present a practical strategy for achieving pure electric field switching of magnetic order. Control magnetic order with electric fields is of critical importance for spintronic devices, however, for certain material classes, such as van der Waals magnets, it is challenging. Here, Huang et al propose a spin-electric potential arising from polar spin interactions between dif...