Robust ferromagnetism in Mn-doped MoS2 nanostructures

Layered transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have attracted extensive attention due to their interesting properties originating from an effective honeycomb lattice and strong spin-orbit coupling, and have potential applications in catalysis, lithium batteries, photonic, electronic, and valleytronic devices. Introducing magnetism in the TMDs can lead to the interesting functionalities such as magnetic order and carrier spin polarization with potential applications in spintronics. Here, we demonstrate an effective approach to induce robust ferromagnetism in MoS2 nanostructures by transition metal doping. After doping with a few percent Mn2+, the magnetism of MoS2 nanostructures is enhanced dramatically. Moreover, the magnetic properties are strongly temperature dependent, which is clearly different from the behavior of defect-induced magnetism. Our approach opens up the possibility for tuning the spin and magnetic properties in two-dimensional nanostructures.