The discovery of magnetism in van der Waals (vdW) materials has established unique building blocks for the research of emergent spintronic phenomena. In particular, owing to their intrinsically clean surface without dangling bonds, the vdW magnets hold the potential to construct a superior interface that allows for efficient electrical manipulation of magnetism. Despite several attempts in this direction, it usually requires a cryogenic condition and the assistance of external magnetic fields, which is detrimental to the real application. Here, we fabricate heterostructures based on Fe₃GaTe₂flakes that have room-temperature ferromagnetism with excellent perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. The current-driven nonreciprocal modulation of coercive fields reveals a high spin-torque efficiency in the Fe₃GaTe₂/Pt heterostructures, which further leads to a full magnetization switching by current. Moreover, we demonstrate the field-free magnetization switching resulting from out-of-plane polarized spin currents by asymmetric geometry design. Our work could expedite the development of efficient vdW spintronic logic, memory, and neuromorphic computing devices.

Interfacial resistive switching and composition-tunable R _LRS are realized in ionically conducting Na _0.5 Bi _0.5 TiO ₃ thin films, allowing optimised ON/OFF ratio (>10 ⁴ ) to be achieved with low growth temperature (600 °C) and low thickness (<20 nm).

Strongly correlated manganites have a wide range of fascinating magnetic and electronic properties, one example being the coexistence of ferromagnetic and insulating properties in lightly-doped bulk. However, it is difficult to translate bulk properties to films. Here, this problem is overcome by thin film nanoengineering of the test case system, La_0.9Ba_0.1MnO₃ (LBMO). This was achieved by using vertically aligned nanocomposite (VAN) thin films of LBMO + CeO₂ in which CeO₂ nanocolumns form embedded in a LBMO matrix. The CeO₂ columns produce uniform tensile straining of the LBMO. Also light Ce doping of intrinsic cation vacancies in the LBMO occurs. Together, these factors strongly reduced the double exchange coupling and metallicity. Hence, while standard plain reference films showed an insulator-to-metal transition at >200 K, originating from defects and complex structural relaxation, the VAN LBMO films exhibited ferromagnetic insulating properties (while maintaining a T_c of 188 K). This is the first time that a combined strain + doping method is used in a VAN system to realise exemplary properties which cannot be realised in plain films. This work represents an important step in engineering high performance spintronic and multiferroic thin film devices.