Path to Overcome Material and Fundamental Obstacles in Spin Valves Based on MoS2 and Other Transition-Metal Dichalcogenides

The recent introduction of two-dimensional materials into magnetic tunnel junctions (2D MTJs) offers very promising properties for spintronics, such as atomically defined interfaces, spin filtering, perpendicular anisotropy, and modulation of spin-orbit torque. Nevertheless, the difficulty of integrating exfoliated 2D materials into spintronic devices has limited exploration. Here the authors find a fabrication process leading to superior performance in MTJs based on transition-metal dichalcogenides, and further suggest a path to alleviate basic issues of technology and physics for 2D MTJs.