Graphene and graphene-like materials, such as BN, transition metal oxides, and transition metal dichalcogenides, have recently attracted considerable attention. Prof. Dai Ying’s research group, School of Physics, carried out a series of research on the electronic structure and related properties of such new materials. Recently, their work on the electronic and spintronics properties of VX2 monolayers (X = S, Se) reveals that pure VS2 and VSe2 monolayers without surface decorating and doping exhibit exciting ferromagnetic behavior. Moreover, it was found that nanomechanical modulation of strain can sensitively enhance or quench the spin polarization and the strength of the exchange coupling of VX2 monolayers, which makes them potential candidates for application in nanodevices, such as a mechanical switch for spin-polarized transport. It is proposed that the strain-dependent magnetic moment is related to the strong ionic–covalent bonds, while both the ferromagnetism and the variation in strength of magnetic coupling with strain arise from the combined effects of both through-bond and through-space interactions. The work suggests a new route to facilitate the design of controllable and tunable spintronic devices, and would stimulate further experimental effort in related fields.

This work is published online in the journal of ACS Nano (Ma, Yandong; Dai, Ying et al. ACS nano, DOI: 10.1021/nn204667z, 2012).

In addition, their series of investigations into the other new graphene-like materials, such as MoY2 (Y=Se，Te), BN, and GaN, have been published in journals such as J. Phys. Chem. C, Nanoscale and PhysChemChemPhys, etc.

Related web：http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn204667z

Written by: Yu Lin

Edited by: Lawrence Phillips, Jing Zizhao

Source: School of Physics,www.view.sdu.edu.cn