Researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have identified a promising spintronics candidate material - few-layer thin semimetal molybdenum ditelluride (MoTe2).
Semimetals feature material properties that are between metals and semiconductors. The researchers found that an extremely thin (few-layers, almost 2D) MoTe2 features an intrinsic Spin Hall Effect (SHE).
By lowering the symmetry of the MoTe2 crystal (thinning it to a few-layer thickness) the researchers were able to overcome the two main SHE limitations: the trade-off between the charge-spin conversion efficiency and the spin diffusion length and the geometrical constraint that requires the flow of charge current, spin current and spin polarization to be mutually orthogonal to each other.
The team now aims to incorporate MoTe2 into functional devices, such as MRAM devices.