Magnetic Proximity Effect and Spin Transport in Heterostructures of Two-Dimensional Ferromagnets

Utilizing van der Waals layered 2D ferromagnetic materials in spintronic devices has become very attractive to the field as they offer the promise of a better understanding of the underlying physical mechanisms involved in such systems. Also, the techniques widely used in the field of spintronics offers the ability to probe the magnetic state of these material.The first chapter of this dissertation is an introduction to van der Waals layered magnetic materials and spintronics with a focus on recent advances in the field of two-dimensional spintronics. The second chapter is a summary of the work I have done to understand the magnetic state of CGT thin flakes by a proximity effect which allows us to use electronic transport in a thin layer of platinum deposited on CGT’s surface to probe the magnetism in the highly insulating ferromagnetic semiconductor. This includes an unsuccessful attempt to induce magnetism in graphene sheets coupled to CGT.The third chapter summarizes the work I have done to understand the spin-orbit torque exerted on the magnetization of thin flakes of FGT in heterostructures with platinum as the source of the injected spin current. This is The final chapter summarizes the study I performed to gain a better understanding of the frustrated anti-ferromagnetism and search for transport signature of the quantum spin liquid state of RuCl3 in RuCl3/Pt heterostructures through magneto-transport measurements. From the work presented in this dissertation it is clear that coupling 2D magnetic materials to heavy metals such as Pt is a valuable tool to probe and utilize this very interesting family of 2D materials.