Electrically tunable Gilbert damping in van der Waals heterostructures of two-dimensional ferromagnetic metals and ferroelectrics

Tuning the Gilbert damping of ferromagnetic (FM) metals via a nonvolatile way is of importance to exploit and design next-generation novel spintronic devices. Through systematical first-principles calculations, we study the magnetic properties of the van der Waals heterostructure of two-dimensional FM metal CrTe2 and ferroelectric (FE) In2Te3 monolayers. The ferromagnetism of CrTe2 is maintained in CrTe2/In2Te3 and its magnetic easy axis can be switched from in-plane to out-of-plane by reversing the FE polarization of In2Te3. Excitingly, we find that the Gilbert damping of CrTe2 is tunable when the FE polarization of In2Te3 is reversed from upward to downward. By analyzing the k-dependent contributions to the Gilbert damping, we unravel that such tunability results from the changed intersections between the bands of CrTe2 and Fermi level on the reversal of the FE polarizations of In2Te3 in CrTe2/In2Te3. Our work provides an appealing way to electrically tailor Gilbert dampings of two-dimensional FM metals by contacting them with ferroelectrics.

Automated summary

Tuning the damping of ferromagnetic metals is important for spintronic devices, and in this study, we investigate the magnetic properties of a van der Waals heterostructure formed by the FM metal CrTe2 and the ferroelectric monolayer In2Te3. We demonstrate that the magnetic easy axis of CrTe2 can be switched from in-plane to out-of-plane by reversing the ferroelectric polarization of In2Te3, and the Gilbert damping of CrTe2 can be tunable by changing the polarization direction of In2Te3. Our findings provide a promising approach to electrically control the damping of two-dimensional ferromagnetic metals by integrating them with ferroelectrics.