Multiferroic Properties in 2D Transition-Metal Dichalcogenides

Multiferroics are materials that simultaneously exhibit more than one type of ordering such as magnetic, electric or elastic. Multiferroicity enables the development of new devices for information processing and storage due to possibility of controlling one type of polarization using a field different from its conjugate field (for example, magnetic polarization through an electric field). The recent discovery of multiferroicity in alloys of transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMD) (of the type MX2, with M a transition-metal and X a chalcogen atom) is relevant in terms of technological applications because of their intrinsically two-dimensional (2D) character. Device miniaturization can take advantage of the fact that TMD’s grow by stacking atomically-thin layered crystal structures, which permits mechanical exfoliation to obtain individual layers from the bulk material. . In this seminar, I will present a short introduction to the topic of multiferroicity in 2D-TMD’s and the advantages of 2D-multiferroicity.