Magnetic Properties of Ge-Doped Fe₃GaTe₂ van der Waals Ferromagnets

Recently, van der Waals magnetic materials have garnered extensive research attention. Among them, Fe₃GaTe₂ possesses strong magnetic anisotropy and a Curie temperature (T_C) above room temperature, exhibiting great application potential in spintronics. Furthermore, Fe₃GaTe₂ shows good responsiveness to elemental doping. However, doping at Fe atomic sites with magnetic metal atoms, while modifying T_C of Fe₃GaTe₂, disrupts its intrinsic ferromagnetic coupling interactions. This leads the doped Fe₃GaTe₂ to exhibit properties such as antiferromagnetism, which is unfavorable for the exploitation of its intrinsic ferromagnetism. Under such circumstances, we noticed the similar structures and ferromagnetism between Fe₃GaTe₂ and Fe₃GeTe₂ and, thus, adopted Ge doping at Ga atomic sites. Compared with magnetic atom doping, this approach can effectively manipulate the ferromagnetism and T_C of Fe₃GaTe₂ while minimizing the disruption to its intrinsic ferromagnetism. Our work enriches the options for manipulating the magnetism of Fe₃GaTe₂ via doping and opens up new directions for the magnetic manipulation of Fe₃GaTe₂.