Discovery of a layered multiferroic compound Cu1- xMn1+ ySiTe3 with strong magnetoelectric coupling

Chandan De; Yu Liu; Sai Venkata Gayathri Ayyagari; Boyang Zheng; Kyle P Kelley; Sankalpa Hazra; Jingyang He; Sylwia Pawledzio; Subin Mali; Samaresh Guchaait; Suguru Yoshida; Yingdong Guan; Seng Huat Lee; Milos Sretenovic; Xianglin Ke; Le Wang; Mark H Engelhard; Yingge Du; Weiwei Xie; Xiaoping Wang; Vincent H Crespi; Nasim Alem; Venkatraman Gopalan; Qiang Zhang; Zhiqiang Mao

doi:10.1126/sciadv.adp9379

Discovery of a layered multiferroic compound Cu_{1- x}Mn_{1+ y}SiTe₃ with strong magnetoelectric coupling

Sci Adv. 2025 Jan 3;11(1):eadp9379. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adp9379. Epub 2025 Jan 1.

Authors

Chandan De^{1

2}, Yu Liu^{1

2}, Sai Venkata Gayathri Ayyagari³, Boyang Zheng^{1

2}, Kyle P Kelley⁴, Sankalpa Hazra³, Jingyang He³, Sylwia Pawledzio⁵, Subin Mali², Samaresh Guchaait⁶, Suguru Yoshida^{1

2}, Yingdong Guan², Seng Huat Lee^{1

2}, Milos Sretenovic⁷, Xianglin Ke⁷, Le Wang⁸, Mark H Engelhard⁹, Yingge Du⁸, Weiwei Xie¹⁰, Xiaoping Wang⁵, Vincent H Crespi^{1

2}, Nasim Alem³, Venkatraman Gopalan^{2

3}, Qiang Zhang⁵, Zhiqiang Mao^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ 2D Crystal Consortium, Materials Research Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
² Department of Physics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
³ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
⁴ Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA.
⁵ Neutron Scattering Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA.
⁶ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Howard University, Washington, DC 20059, USA.
⁷ Department of Physics & Astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA.
⁸ Physical and Computational Sciences Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352, USA.
⁹ Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Chemistry, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA.

Abstract

Multiferroic materials host both ferroelectricity and magnetism, offering potential for magnetic memory and spin transistor applications. Here, we report a multiferroic chalcogenide semiconductor Cu_1-xMn_1+ySiTe₃ (0.04 ≤ x ≤ 0.26; 0.03 ≤ y ≤ 0.15), which crystallizes in a polar monoclinic structure (Pm space group). It exhibits a canted antiferromagnetic state below 35 kelvin, with magnetic hysteresis and remanent magnetization under 15 kelvin. We demonstrate multiferroicity and strong magnetoelectric coupling through magnetodielectric and magnetocurrent measurements. At 10 kelvin, the magnetically induced electric polarization reaches ~0.8 microcoulombs per square centimeter, comparable to the highest value in oxide multiferroics. We also observe possible room-temperature ferroelectricity. Given that multiferroicity is very rare among transition metal chalcogenides, our finding sets up a unique materials platform for designing multiferroic chalcogenides.