Experimental Evidence of Room-Temperature Ferromagnetism in Semiconducting MnS

The discovery of two-dimensional (2D) ferromagnetic semiconductors holds significant promise for advancing Moore's law and spintronics in-memory computing, sparking tremendous interest. However, the Curie temperature of explored 2D ferromagnetic semiconductors is much lower than room temperature. Although plenty of 2D room-temperature ferromagnetic semiconductors have been theoretically predicted, there have been formidable challenges in preparing such metastable materials with ordered structures and high stability. Here, utilizing a novel template-assisted chemical vapor deposition strategy, we synthesized layered MnS2 microstructures within a ReS2 template. The high-resolution atomic structure representation revealed that monolayer MnS2 microstructures well crystallize into a distorted T-phase. Room-temperature ferromagnetism was confirmed through vibrating sample magnetometer measurements, microzone magnetism imaging techniques, and transport characterization. Theoretical calculations indicated that the room-temperature ferromagnetism originates from the Mn-Mn short-range interaction. Our observation not only offered the experimental confirmation of the intrinsic room-temperature ferromagnetism in layered MnS2, but also provided an innovative strategy for the growth of 2D metastable functional materials.