UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

Magnetically and optically active edges in phosphorene nanoribbons

Ashoka, A; Clancy, AJ; Panjwani, NA; Cronin, A; Picco, L; Aw, ESY; Popiel, NJM; ... Pandya, R; + view all (2025) Magnetically and optically active edges in phosphorene nanoribbons. Nature , 639 (8054) pp. 348-353. 10.1038/s41586-024-08563-x. Green open access

[thumbnail of Magnetically and optically active edges in phosphorene nanoribbons.pdf]
Preview
Text
Magnetically and optically active edges in phosphorene nanoribbons.pdf - Accepted Version

Download (2MB) | Preview

Abstract

Nanoribbons, nanometre-wide strips of a two-dimensional material, are a unique system in condensed matter. They combine the exotic electronic structures of low-dimensional materials with an enhanced number of exposed edges, where phenomena including ultralong spin coherence times1,2, quantum confinement3 and topologically protected states4,5 can emerge. An exciting prospect for this material concept is the potential for both a tunable semiconducting electronic structure and magnetism along the nanoribbon edge, a key property for spin-based electronics such as (low-energy) non-volatile transistors6. Here we report the magnetic and semiconducting properties of phosphorene nanoribbons (PNRs). We demonstrate that at room temperature, films of PNRs show macroscopic magnetic properties arising from their edge, with internal fields of roughly 240 to 850 mT. In solution, a giant magnetic anisotropy enables the alignment of PNRs at sub-1-T fields. By leveraging this alignment effect, we discover that on photoexcitation, energy is rapidly funnelled to a state that is localized to the magnetic edge and coupled to a symmetry-forbidden edge phonon mode. Our results establish PNRs as a fascinating system for studying the interplay between magnetism and semiconducting ground states at room temperature and provide a stepping-stone towards using low-dimensional nanomaterials in quantum electronics.

Type: Article
Title: Magnetically and optically active edges in phosphorene nanoribbons
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08563-x
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08563-x
Language: English
Additional information: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Electronic and Electrical Eng
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Chemistry
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Physics and Astronomy
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10207219
Downloads since deposit
17Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item