Magnetism in hybrid organic/inorganic van der Waals heterostructures

Objective

Spintronics, technologies which make use of electron spin rather than solely its charge, represent a promising pathway towards new, efficient technologies. Two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdW) materials are promising candidates for these new technologies as they exhibit exotic electronic and magnetic properties, including recently observed ferromagnetism, and they can be combined with other low-dimensional materials in layered heterostructures. Meanwhile, the development of on-surface synthesis (OSS) protocols for organic and metal-organic materials has led to a pool of magnetic materials whose properties can be tuned via careful selection of molecular precursor. This project aims to develop new hybrid organic/inorganic vdW heterostructures to combine the tuneability of organic and metal-organic materials with 2D ferromagnetic vdW materials. This project will develop new OSS protocols for low-dimensional organic and metal-organic materials on 2D inorganic ferromagnets. It will also seek to characterize the interfacial magnetic and electronic properties of the hybrid vdW heterostructures using scanning probe microscopy. These growth protocols and magnetic properties could inform the design of future spintronics technologies.