The extraordinary magnetoelectric response in silicene doped with Fe and Cr atoms

Abstract

We have investigated the magnetic properties of the silicene doped with Fe and Cr metal atoms under external electric field by the first-principles calculations. We find that the doped systems show a variety of interesting magnetoelectric (ME) behaviors: (1) The magnetic moment of Fe doped silicene show a sharp jump at a threshold electric field, which indicates a good switching effect; (2) For the low concentrations of Fe or Cr doped silicene, there are two structures in which the changes of magnetism are significantly different under external electric field; (3) The magnetic moment of the doped systems has a nearly linear region with the electric field. We find that the changes of magnetic moment strongly depend on the direction of the electric field. In particular, one structure of Fe doped silicene shows an interesting ME response which can be considered as a magnetoelectric diode. With the electric field, the good controllability and sharp switching of the magnetism may offer a potential applications in the ME devices.