Anisotropic Magnetoresistance and Planar Hall Effect in Layered Room-Temperature Ferromagnet Cr_1.2Te₂

Two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals ferromagnets are regarded as a breakthrough for the 2D spintronics community, which has attracted a great deal of interest in developing low-dimension spintronic devices. Anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) and the planar Hall effect (PHE) are instrumental in realizing highly sensitive magnetic sensors and nonvolatile memory devices. Despite being discovered in many 2D ferromagnets, most exhibit relatively weak AMR and PHE effects, and their Curie temperature is below room temperature. Here, we report the effects of PHE and AMR at room temperature in the layered ferromagnet of Cr1.2Te2 flakes that exhibit high saturation magnetization and low coercivity, as evidenced by the angular-dependent transport measurements. The low-temperature magnetoresistance behavior of the Cr1.2Te2 flake reveals a truly remarkable 4-fold AMR effect, resulting from the material’s high-term lattice symmetry, which is distinct from the traditional 2-fold AMR. These valuable insights provide a better understanding of high-order AMR in layered magnetic materials. Our findings demonstrate the immense promise of Cr1.2Te2 in driving the development of future 2D spintronic applications that operate at room temperature.