Very large tunneling magnetoresistance in layered magnetic semiconductor CrI₃

Magnetic layered van der Waals crystals are an emerging class of materials giving access to new physical phenomena, as illustrated by the recent observation of 2D ferromagnetism in Cr₂Ge₂Te₆ and CrI₃. Of particular interest in semiconductors is the interplay between magnetism and transport, which has remained unexplored. Here we report magneto-transport measurements on exfoliated CrI₃ crystals. We find that tunneling conduction in the direction perpendicular to the crystalline planes exhibits a magnetoresistance as large as 10,000%. The evolution of the magnetoresistance with magnetic field and temperature reveals that the phenomenon originates from multiple transitions to different magnetic states, whose possible microscopic nature is discussed on the basis of all existing experimental observations. This observed dependence of the conductance of a tunnel barrier on its magnetic state is a phenomenon that demonstrates the presence of a strong coupling between transport and magnetism in magnetic van der Waals semiconductors.