Anion vacancy-mediated ferromagnetism in atomic-thick Ni_3N nanosheets

摘要

Realizing spin and electronic behavior of two-dimensional ultrathin nanosheets is significant to construct next generation nanoelectronics. Here, atomic-thick Ni_3N nanosheets with clear room temperature ferromagnetism and high saturation magnetization (1.2 emu/g) are reported. X-ray magnetic circular dichroism and first-principles calculation results give the evidence that the observed intrinsic ferromagnetism in Ni_3N nanosheets originates from the surface N-deficiency, where alignments of localized large magnetic moments of Ni in the vicinity of the N defect can be aligned parallel to activate macroscopic ferromagnetism. These ultrathin Ni_3N nanosheets show great potential application in next-generation electron devices.