Theoretical study of strain induced magnetic transition of single-layer CrTe₃

Developing novel controllable two-dimensional semiconductor materials is crucial to thin film spintronic devices, which may lead to a revolution of information devices. Recently, the easily cleavable CrTe₃ has attracted much attention for studying the magnetic properties of two-dimensional materials. In this paper, we have demonstrated theoretically that an elastic tensile strain can turn the antiferromagnetic coupled single-layer CrTe₃ (SL-CrTe₃) into a ferromagnetic (FM) system, favoring its potential application in thin film spintronic devices. The FM SL-CrTe₃ undergoes a further transition from a semiconductor to a metal under a biaxial tensile strain of 9%. The kinetic stability of SL-CrTe₃ under 10% tensile strain is verified by a molecular dynamics simulation at room temperature. We suppose that the strain-dependent magnetic behaviors of SL-CrTe₃ resulted from the competition between superexchange and direct interactions. The tunable magnetic and electronic properties of SL-CrTe₃ imply immense potential in spintronic device applications.