Enabling room-temperature ferromagnetism and p-type conductance in MoS₂ monolayers by substitutional doping of vanadium

The integrated circuits based on carrier charge have neared their physical limits, which are constrained by the von Neumann architecture and incapable of meeting the demands for information storage, processing, and transmission from the rapid advancements in mass data and artificial intelligence. Recently discovered two-dimensional magnets, with their strengths in multi-field manipulation and high-density heterogeneous integration, have presented significant opportunities for the development of novel devices such as compute-in-memory. However, generating stable magnetic order in two-dimensional systems at room temperature is still difficult. Here, we have devised a liquid-phase precursor-assisted chemical vapor deposition methodology for the synthesis of vanadium-doped MoS₂ monolayers. Magnetic measurements showed an augmentation of magnetic signals concurrent with an increase in growth temperature and doping concentration. Field-effect transistor assessments using the synthesized V-doped MoS₂ monolayer as the conducting channel indicated a transition from n-type semiconducting to p-type at a doping concentration of around 6.8%, further corroborated by theoretical computations. Our study not only presents a novel synthetic approach toward the production of two-dimensional magnetic materials but also elucidates the potential of doping procedures for modulating electrical characteristics.