Four distinct resistive states in van der Waals full magnetic 1T-VSe2/CrI3/1T-VSe2 tunnel junction

Two-dimensional (2D) intrinsic magnets have been successfully utilized to make the multifunctional van der Waals (vdW) spintronic devices. In this work, we design a vdW magnetic tunnel junction (vdW MTJ) formed by a ferromagnetic (FM) monolayer CrI3 barrier sandwiched between two 2D FM 1T-VSe2 electrodes and investigate the magnetic anisotropy and the tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) effect of this vdW MTJ by using first-principles calculations. It is found that different from the conventional MTJs, four different magnetic configurations can be achieved in the vdW MTJ based on 1T-VSe2/CrI3/1T-VSe2 heterostructure when the magnetic moments of top electrode are pinned to be [0 0 1] axis. Moreover, the conductance of vdW MTJ based on 1T-VSe2/CrI3/1T-VSe2 heterostructure is the highest (lowest) when the magnetic moments of barrier and bottom electrode are all along [0 0 1] ([001]) axis, and a highest TMR ratio of 178% can be obtained in this vdW MTJ. The large changes of tunneling conductance with different magnetic configurations originate mainly from the large variation of the effective majority- and minority-spin transmission channels of FM 1T-VSe2 for different magnetic configurations. Our results suggest that vdW MTJ based on 1T-VSe2/CrI3/1T-VSe2 heterostructure holds great potential in multi-states magnetic storage for spintronics.