Asymmetric Spin Valve Based on Fe₃GaTe₂/Fe₃GaTe₂ via the Synergy of the Anomalous Hall Effect and Spin-Dependent...

The escalating storage demands of modern information technologies are driving the need for high-density, nonvolatile memory, positioning magnetic random-access memory as a leading candidate. However, its basic storage unit, i.e., the spin valve, offers only binary magnetoresistance (MR) states, restricting the achievable storage density. In this work, we demonstrate an MR modulation in Fe₃GaTe₂/Fe₃GaTe₂ van der Waals (vdW) junctions by combining the anomalous Hall effect and the spin-dependent scattering effect, which contribute to the asymmetric and symmetric MR components, respectively. By setting the two ferromagnetic electrodes to the antiparallel configuration, a loop current is formed in the adjacent areas of different domains because of the opposite charge distributions dominated by the anomalous Hall effect. Thus, an extra potential drop is introduced to the read voltage, which results in the multistate MR. Furthermore, the ratio between these two components can be adjusted by modulating the interfacial barrier height, which varies the resistance states. These findings establish a scalable strategy for high-density memory and a viable route to advance performance modulation of spintronic hardware via vdW engineering.