High Carrier Mobility in a Layered Antiferromagnet Integrated with Silicon

Abstract

Coupling various functional properties in one material is always a challenge, more so if the material should be nanostructured for practical applications. Magnetism and high carrier mobility are key components for spintronic applications but rather difficult to bundle together. Here, we establish EuAl2Si2 as a layered antiferromagnet supporting high carrier mobility. Its topotactic synthesis via a sacrificial two-dimensional template results in epitaxial nanoscale films on silicon. Their outstanding structural quality and atomically sharp interfaces are demonstrated by diffraction and microscopy techniques. EuAl2Si2 films exhibit extreme magnetoresistance and a carrier mobility of above 10,000 cm2 V–1 s–1. The marriage of these properties and magnetism makes EuAl2Si2 a promising spintronic material. Importantly, the seamless integration of EuAl2Si2 with silicon technology is particularly appealing for applications.

Thickness‐Dependent Superconductivity in a Layered Electride on Silicon

“…We assume that silicon for the synthesis can be supplied by the substrate via the vacancy mechanism. [35,36,41,42] The first test is whether a SrAlSi film of the required quality can be produced in one step by co-deposition of Sr and Al on a clean Si(111) surface. For this purpose, we employed reactive molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), a technique that had been successful in synthesis of various layered materials on silicon, [35,36,41,42] providing kinetic control on the scale of a single monolayer (ML).…”

“…A similar problem arises in synthesis of MAl 2 Si 2 films with high carrier mobility on silicon; it has been solved by introducing a precursory step -formation of a self-sacrificial silicide template with an intermediate value of the lattice parameter. [35,42] Here, we apply this strategy to synthesis of SrAlSi films on Si(111).…”