Vacancies Engineering in Molybdenum Boride MBene Nanosheets to Activate Room-Temperature Ferromagnetism

Liangzhu Zhang; Shucheng Xing; Tian He; Wei-Bin Wu; An-Lei Zhang; Zhoubin Guo; Pratteek Das; Shuanghao Zheng; Jun-Yi Ge; Xinliang Feng; Zhimei Sun; Zhong-Shuai Wu

doi:10.1002/adma.202411765

Vacancies Engineering in Molybdenum Boride MBene Nanosheets to Activate Room-Temperature Ferromagnetism

Adv Mater. 2024 Nov 2:e2411765. doi: 10.1002/adma.202411765. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Liangzhu Zhang^{1

2}, Shucheng Xing³, Tian He⁴, Wei-Bin Wu⁴, An-Lei Zhang⁵, Zhoubin Guo⁶, Pratteek Das¹, Shuanghao Zheng¹, Jun-Yi Ge⁴, Xinliang Feng^{7

8}, Zhimei Sun³, Zhong-Shuai Wu¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 457 Zhongshan Road, Dalian, 116023, China.
² School of Materials Science and Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200237, China.
³ Center for Integrated Computational Materials Engineering, International Research Institute for Multidisciplinary Science, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, China.
⁴ Materials Genome Institute, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, China.
⁵ College of Science, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing, 210023, China.
⁶ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19 A Yuquan Road, Shijingshan District, Beijing, 100049, China.
⁷ Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed), Faculty of Chemistry and Food Chemistry, Technische Universität Dresden, 01062, Dresden, Germany.
⁸ Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, 06120, Halle (Saale), Germany.

PMID: 39487657
DOI: 10.1002/adma.202411765

Abstract

The rapid development of low energy dissipation spintronic devices has stimulated the search for air-stable 2D nanomaterials possessing room-temperature ferromagnetism. Here the experimental realization of 2D Mo_4/3B₂ nanosheets is reported with intrinsic room-temperature ferromagnetic characteristics by vacancy engineering. These nanosheets are synthesized by etching the bulk MAB phase (Mo_2/3Y_1/3)₂AlB₂ into Mo_4/3B₂ nanosheets in ZnCl₂ molten salt. The Mo_4/3B₂ nanosheets show robust intrinsic ferromagnetic properties, with a saturation magnetic moment of 0.044 emu g^-1 at 300 K, while vacancy-free MoB MBene exhibits paramagnetism. It is elucidated that the Mo-vacancy defect generates large density of states near the Fermi surface and spontaneously spin-split bands through first-principles calculations, which contributes to the non-zero magnetic moment in Mo_4/3B₂ nanosheets. This work lays the groundwork for activating the magnetic properties of MBene nanosheets by vacancy engineering, offering the possibilities for development of practical spintronic devices.

Keywords: MBene; molybdenum boride; nanosheets; room‐temperature ferromagnetism.

Abstract

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