Room-temperature magnetism on the zigzag edges of phosphorene nanoribbons

Searching for room-temperature ferromagnetic semiconductors has evolved into a broad field of material science and spintronics for decades, nevertheless, these novel states remain rare. Phosphorene, a monolayer black phosphorus with a puckered honeycomb lattice structure possessing a finite band gap and high carrier mobility, has been synthesized recently. Here we show, by means of two different large-scale quantum Monte Carlo methods, that relatively weak interactions can lead to remarkable edge magnetism in the phosphorene nanoribbons. The ground state constrained path quantum Monte Carlo simulations reveal strong ferromagnetic correlations along the zigzag edges, and the finite temperature determinant quantum Monte Carlo calculations show a high Curie temperature up to room temperature.