Spin photovoltaic effects in magnetic van der Waals heterostructures

In a new report now published on Science Advances, Tiancheng Song and a research team at the department of physics, University of Washington, U.S., and materials and nanoarchitectronics in Japan and China, detailed spin photovoltaic effects in van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures of two-dimensional (2D) magnetic chromium triiodide (CrI3) sandwiched by graphene contacts. The concept of van der Waals crystals and their heterostructures are of interest in materials science, applied physics and optoelectronics, to explore the optoelectronic properties within the two-dimensional (2D) limit. It is possible to integrate 2D magnets to realize 2D spin-optoelectronics with controlled spin degrees of freedom. The photocurrent of the CrI3 displayed a distinct dependence on light helicity, which Song et al. tuned by varying the magnetic states and photon energy. The research highlighted the potential to study the emergent phenomenon of photospintronics by engineering magnetic vdW heterostructures.