Half-Unit-Cell α-Fe2O3 Semiconductor Nanosheets with Intrinsic and Robust Ferromagnetism
- 15 July 2014
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Chemical Society (ACS) in Journal of the American Chemical Society
- Vol. 136 (29), 10393-10398
- https://doi.org/10.1021/ja504088n
Abstract
The synthesis of atomically thin transition-metal oxide nanosheets as a conceptually new class of materials is significant for the development of next-generation electronic and magnetic nanodevices but remains a fundamental chemical and physical challenge. Here, based on a "template-assisted oriented growth" strategy, we successfully synthesized half-unit-cell nanosheets of a typical transition-metal oxide α-Fe2O3 that show robust intrinsic ferromagnetism of 0.6 μB/atom at 100 K and remain ferromagnetic at room temperature. A unique surface structure distortion, as revealed by X-ray absorption spectroscopy, produces nonidentical Fe ion environments and induces distance fluctuation of Fe ion chains. First-principles calculations reveal that the efficient breaking of the quantum degeneracy of Fe 3d energy states activates ferromagnetic exchange interaction in these Fe(5-co)-O-Fe(6-co) ion chains. These results provide a solid design principle for tailoring the spin-exchange interactions and offer promise for future semiconductor spintronics.Keywords
Funding Information
- Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China (2012CB825800)
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (11105151, 11135008, 11321503, U1232132, U1332111, U1332131)
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