Toward Room-Temperature Magnetic Semiconductors in Two-Dimensional Ferrimagnetic Organometallic Lattices

Obtaining room-temperature magnetically ordered two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors is urgently needed for high-speed nanospintronic devices but remains a big challenge. Here, we propose a potential route to solve this issue by constructing ferrimagnetic semiconductors in 2D metal organic frameworks, taking advantage of the high Curie temperature of ferrimagnetic semiconductors and easy tunability of metal organic frameworks. The proposal is confirmed by first-principles design of 2D metal organic frameworks with conjugated electron acceptors diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) as organic linkers and transition metal Cr (V) as nodes. The robust ferrimagnetic ordering comes from the strong direct exchange interaction between d-electron magnetic moments on transition metals and charge transfer-induced p-electron magnetic moments on DPPs, which can be modulated facilely by reducing the d-p orbital interaction distance via moderate compressive strain or increasing the d-p orbital charge transfer through introducing electron-withdrawing groups into the DPP moiety.