Electrostatic control of magnetism: Emergent opportunities with van der Waals materials

Since the first reports on the observation of magnetic order in atomically thin crystals of FePS3, CrI3, and CrGeTe3 in 2016 and 2017, there has been a greatly renewed interest in the magnetism of van der Waals (vdW) layered magnets. Due to their dimensionality and structure, ultrathin vdW magnets offer tantalizing prospects for electrostatic control of magnetism for energy-efficient spintronic logic and memory devices. Recent demonstrations revealed unusually high susceptibility of some vdW magnets to electrostatic fields and shed light on a path to room temperature devices, a long-standing goal in spintronics research. In this Perspective, we discuss the potential of different classes of vdW magnets for electrostatic control of magnetism by comparing their properties with those of non-vdW magnets such as dilute magnetic III-V semiconductors and perovskite manganites that have been intensively studied in the past two decades. Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing.