Stripes, Gaps and Orderly Disorder—Tuning Magnetic Textures in Intercalated TMDs

Intercalated transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have been proposed as promising platforms for next-generation spintronic devices based on a wide range of electronic and magnetic phases which can be tuned by varying the host lattice or the species, amount, and ordering of intercalants [1]. Several compounds have been shown to host chiral magnetic order, namely a helical winding of in-plane magnetic moments along the <i>c</i>-axis of the layered crystal structure. Previous studies have shown that different intercalant concentrations can have a dramatic impact on, for example, chiral domains [2] and magnetic properties [3], but a deeper and more predictive understanding of these effects will be necessary for any future applications of these materials. Here, we leverage a combination of imaging modes in the (scanning) transmission electron microscope (S/TEM) to directly probe (dis)order across multiple length scales and show how subtle changes in the atomic lattice can have dramatic impact on mesoscale magnetic textures.<br/><br/><br/>1. Xie, L. S. et al. Structure and Magnetism of Iron- and Chromium-Intercalated Niobium and Tantalum Disulfides. <i>J. Am. Chem. Soc. </i><b>144</b>, 9525−9542 (2022).<br/>2. Horibe, Y. et al. Color Theorems, Chiral Domain Topology, and Magnetic Properties of Fe<i>_x</i>TaS₂. <i>J. Am. Chem. Soc.</i> <b>136</b>, 8368−8373 (2014).<br/>3. Kousaka, Y. et al. An emergence of chiral helimagnetism or ferromagnetism governed by Cr intercalation in a dichalcogenide CrNb₃S₆. <i>APL Mater. </i><b>10</b>, 090704 (2022).<br/><br/>* This work supported by University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, the National Science Foundation (DMR-2039380, DMR-1719875, MRI-1429155, DMR-1539918), and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (FA9550-20-1-0007).