Enabling large tunnel magnetoresistance at room temperature in scalable epitaxial van der Waals magnet heterostructures

The emergence of atomically thin two-dimensional (2D) materials and their van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures offer remarkable electronic properties for next-generation technologies.

The MagicTune project aims to achieve large and tunable tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) at room temperature by controlling spin-polarised tunnelling in 2D magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) through twist angle and gate voltage control.

Scalable growth processes for high-quality vdW magnetic heterostructures with high Curie temperatures (TC) and perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) will be developed.

The project will maximise tunnel spin polarisation in MTJs by exploiting momentum-conserving electron tunneling across vdW barriers.

Robust room temperature TMR device operation will be demonstrated using epitaxial van der Waals magnetic heterostructures.MagicTune will leverage expertise in molecular beam epitaxial growth and characterisation, synthesis of epitaxial graphene templates, tunnel magnetoresistance devices, twistronics, quantum and spin transport measurements, and nanofabrication of all-2D nanodevices.

Success in MagicTune will drive breakthroughs in TMR device functionalities.

It will offer high sensitivity in magnetic field detection at room temperature, making them suitable for applications such as magnetic sensors, data storage, memory, and computing.