10/09/2020
Magnetism, one of the most fundamental physical properties, has revolutionized significant technologies such as data storage and biomedical imaging, and continues to bring forth new phenomena in emerging materials of reduced dimensionalities. The recently discovered magnetic 2D van der Waals materials provide ideal platforms to enable the atomic-thin, flexible, lightweight magneto-optical and magnetoelectric devices. Though many have hoped that the ultra-thinness of 2D magnets should allow an efficient electrical control of magnetism, the state-of-the-art has not achieved notable breakthroughs to this end. In this talk, I will speak on our experimental discovery of the first 2D ferromagnet, analyze the current progress and existing challenges in this emerging field, and propose promising strategies towards the efficient electrical control of 2D magnetism for low-power spintronics.
Dr. Cheng Gong is an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Quantum Technology Center (QTC) at the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Gong is a recipient of IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Semiconductor Physics 2020. His group focuses on magnetic, electronic and optical properties of 2D materials, nanostructures and nanodevices, studied by a variety of optical and electrical approaches in synergy with density functional theory calculations. From 2014 to 2019, he was a postdoctoral fellow at University of California, Berkeley, where he pioneered the discovery of the first magnetic 2D material and innovated the development of spintronic devices based on magnetic 2D materials and heterostructures. He received his Ph.D. in 2013 in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas.