Magnetic and electronic properties of Fe₃O₄/PtSe₂/Fe₃O₄ junctions

Two-dimensional (2D) materials with single or a few-atomic layers have attracted significant attention from the scientific community due to their transport properties and potential for technological applications. A variety of 2D materials beyond graphene with different bandgaps have been synthesized in recent years. One of them is platinum diselenide (PtSe₂) with the bandgap energy of 1.2 eV at one monolayer. However, the low throughput synthesis of high quality 2D thin films has thus far hindered the development of PtSe₂ devices. In this work methods of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) have been used to fabricate PtSe₂ thin films. We have fabricated a prototypical PtSe₂ based magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) with Fe₃O₄ electrodes. For this purpose, Fe₃O₄-PtSe₂-Fe₃O₄ trilayers were grown on MgO(100) substrate. The magnetoresistance of the trilayer at room temperature indicates that PtSe₂ is a potential candidate as a barrier material for Fe₃O₄ based magnetic tunnel junctions.