Manipulation of electronic and magnetic properties of M2C (M = Hf, Nb, Sc, Ta, Ti, V, Zr) monolayer by applying mechanical strains

Tuning the electronic and magnetic properties of a material through strain engineering is an effective strategy to enhance the performance of electronic and spintronic devices. In this paper, first-principles calculations based on density functional theory are carried out to investigate the electronic and magnetic properties of M2C( M = Hf, Nb, Sc, Ta, Ti, V, Zr, known as MXenes) subjected to biaxial symmetric mechanical strains. At the strain-free state, all these MXenes exhibit no spontaneous magnetism except for Ti2C and Zr2C which show a magnetic moment of 1.92 and 1.25 mu(B)/unit, respectively. As the tensile strain increases, the magnetic moments of MXenes are greatly enhanced and a transition from nonmagnetism to ferromagnetism is observed for those nonmagnetic MXenes at zero strains. The most distinct transition is found in Hf2C, in which the magnetic moment is elevated to 1.5 mu(B)/unit at a strain of 1.80%. We further show that the magnetic properties of Hf2C are attributed to the band shift mainly composed of Hf(5d) states. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.