Magnetic van der Waals materials

Magnetic van der Waals materials is a new addition to the growing list of 2d materials. The special feature of these new materials is that they exhibit a magnetic ground state, either antiferromagnetic or ferromagnetic, when they are thinned down to very few sheets or even one layer of materials. Another, a probably more important feature of these materials is that they can be easily produced in few layers or monolayer form using simple means such as scotch tape, which is rather uncommon among other magnetic materials like oxide magnets.

As the history of science has amply demonstrated, magnetism has been playing a pivotal role in advancing our understanding of nature, both academically and industrially. This new class of materials offers the possibility of producing real two-dimensional magnetic materials with ease: which is the main reason behind the huge excitement about them. It is also known as van der Waals magnets, magnetic 2D materials or more romantically magnetic graphene. The field started with a series of papers in 2016 both a conceptual and visionary paper[1] and a first experimental demonstration.[2][3] The field was expanded further with the publication of similar observations in ferromagnetism the following year.[4][5] Since then, the field has exploded with several new materials discovered as well as several important review papers.[6][7][8]