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Signatures of magnetism in zigzag graphene nanoribbons embedded in a hexagonal boron nitride lattice

Nature Materials volume 24, pages 1592–1599 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Zigzag edges of graphene are predicted to host magnetic electronic states, critical for spintronics, but an experimental confirmation of these magnetic conduction channels remains elusive. Here we report the signatures of magnetism in zigzag graphene nanoribbons (zGNRs) embedded in hexagonal boron nitride. Hexagonal boron nitride provides crucial edge stabilization, enabling the direct probing of this intrinsic magnetism. Scanning nitrogen-vacancy-centre microscopy initially confirmed magnetism in zGNR. Subsequently, an ~9-nm-wide zGNR transistor was fabricated with a sub-50-nm channel length. Magnetotransport measurements at 4 K revealed distinct Fabry–Pérot-like interference patterns, indicating coherent transport. A large, anisotropic magnetoresistance (~175 Ω, ~1.3%) was observed, persisting well above room temperature. These findings strongly corroborate the existence of robust magnetic ordering in the zGNR edge state. This hexagonal-boron-nitride-embedded zGNR system offers an effective platform for future graphene-based spintronic devices.

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Fig. 1: Probing the magnetism of zGNRs embedded in hBN with SNVM under ambient conditions.
Fig. 2: An ~9-nm-wide zGNR embedded in hBN and its electrical properties.
Fig. 3: Magnetotransport properties of the ~9-nm-wide zGNR under different Vgate values.
Fig. 4: Angle dependence of MR under different Vgate values at 4 K.
Fig. 5: Bias- and temperature-dependent MR of the ~9-nm-wide zGNR FET.

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Source data are provided with this paper. All other data that support the results in this study are available from the corresponding authors on request.

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Acknowledgements

H.W. thanks C. G. Duan (East China Normal University) and D. Sun and W. Han (Peking University) for helpful discussions. The NV-centre measurements were performed on the Diamond III Quantum Diamond Atomic Force Microscope, CIQTEK. This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2024YFA1207900), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (91964102, 62474179, 51772317, 12004406, 62074099, 12304113 and 62374169), Shanghai Collaborative Innovation Project (XTCX-KJ-2024-02), the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant no. XDB0670000), the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (20DZ2203600), the Research Project of State Key Laboratory of Integrated Circuit Materials (no. NKLJC-Z2023-B01), Open Research Fund of State Key Laboratory of Materials for Integrated Circuits (no. SKLJC-K2025-09), Shanghai Post-Doctoral Excellence Program (2021515), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (BX2021331, 2021M703338, 2021M693425 and 2021K224B), Project from CETC Key Laboratory of Carbon-based Electronics (no. CKLCE0302202401), ShanghaiTech Soft Matter Nanofab (SMN180827) and ShanghaiTech Material and Device Lab. K.W. and T.T. acknowledge support from JSPS KAKENHI (19H05790, 20H00354 and 21H05233) and A3 Foresight by JSPS.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Materials for Integrated Circuits, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China

    Chengxin Jiang, Hui Shan Wang, Chenxi Liu, Chen Chen, Xiujun Wang, Yibo Wang, Ziqiang Kong, Yuhan Feng, Yixin Liu, Yu Feng, Yu Zhang, Gang Mu & Haomin Wang

  2. Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Hui Shan Wang, Chenxi Liu, Xiujun Wang, Ziqiang Kong, Yuhan Feng, Yu Feng, Yu Zhang, Gang Mu & Haomin Wang

  3. Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Material and Device, Department of Physics, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China

    Hui Shan Wang & Wangzhou Shi

  4. School of Materials Science and Physics, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, China

    Lingxiu Chen

  5. State Key Laboratory of High Power Semiconductor Lasers, Changchun University of Science and Technology, Changchun, China

    Zhipeng Wei

  6. CIQTEK Co. Ltd, Hefei, China

    Maosen Guo & Aomei Tong

  7. School of Information Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, China

    Yumeng Yang

  8. Research Center for Functional Materials, National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Japan

    Kenji Watanabe

  9. International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Japan

    Takashi Taniguchi

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  1. Chengxin Jiang
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Contributions

H.W. and H.S.W. directed and supervised the research work. H.W. conceived and designed the research. C.J., H.S.W., C.L. and C.C. contributed equally to this work. H.S.W., C.C. and X.W. fabricated the zGNR devices and carried out the transport measurements. C.J., L.C., Y.W., Yuhan Feng and Yu Feng performed the growth of zGNRs. C.J., Y.Z. and Z.K. performed the AFM and scanning electron microscopy measurements. C.L. performed the non-contact AFM measurements. H.S.W., Y.L. and G.M. performed the magnetic property measurement system measurements. H.W., C.J., H.S.W. and Y.Y. analysed the experimental data and wrote the paper, with contribution from all authors. All authors contributed to critical discussions of the results and paper.

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Correspondence to Hui Shan Wang or Haomin Wang.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Evidence that magnetization comes from the N-C boundary of zGNR and hBN.

Topography (a) and friction (b) images of an epitaxial zGNR acquired by AFM. The zoom-in lateral force image of zGNR area is marked by circle in (b), which indicates the zigzag orientation of graphene ribbon65. (c) The ODMR result of the same ribbon in iso-B mode, showing magnetic signal along the graphene ribbon-BN boundary by NV scanning. (d) A typical nc-AFM image of the epitaxial grown ribbon from a step edge of hBN in constant-height mode, corresponding to the area marked as green square in (b). (e) Force spectroscopies taken on different atoms at the ribbon-BN boundary. Insert: A zoom-in view of the boundary of graphene-BN at atomic resolution in the area marked as a yellow square in (d), here boron atoms in red, carbon atoms in black and nitride atoms in blue.

Extended Data Fig. 2 The magnetism measurement on an epitaxial zigzag graphene ribbon from boron side of hBN step edge.

Topography (a) and friction (b) images of an epitaxial graphene ribbon acquired by AFM. The zoom-in lateral force image of the graphene ribbon area is marked by circle in (b), which indicates the zigzag orientation of the graphene ribbon65. (c) The NV scanning result of the same ribbon in iso-B mode, showing magnetic signal along the boundary of graphene-BN. (d) A typical nc-AFM image of the same graphene ribbon in constant-height mode, corresponding to the area marked as green square in (b). (e) Force spectroscopies taken on different atoms at the boundary of ribbon-BN. Insert: A zoom-in view of the boundary of zGNR-BN (boron side) in the area marked as a yellow square in (d), here boron in red, carbon in black and nitride in blue.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Characterization of zGNR embedded in hBN.

(a) A SEM image of zGNRs embedded in hBN. The black arrows point to zGNRs. Scale bar is 2 μm. (b) AFM height image of the zGNR embedded in hBN. The grey arrow points to the zGNR. Scale bar is 50 nm. The inset shows the lattice resolution friction image of hBN which indicates the orientation of GNR.

Extended Data Fig. 4 Macroscopic investigation in magnetic ordering in zGNR.

Raw SQUID data of zGNRs (a) with the direction of magnetic field B perpendicular to the surface of substrate and (b) with B||substrate surface. Inset shows an optical image of the hBN flake with zGNRs on a 300 nm SiO2/silicon substrate. (c) ZFC and FC M-T curves measured from 10 to 395 K with B⊥the surface of substrate under the applied field = 0.1 T. (d) Raw SQUID data of the same sample with B⊥the surface of substrate after the sample was subject to annealing at 800 °C in a O2 flow to burn out all zGNRs. The variation in the slopes of M-H loop originate from a small change of sample position in cryostat as it is very difficult to place the sample at the exactly same position.

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Experimental data points for Fig. 3a–f.

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Experimental data points for Fig. 4a–d.

Source Data Fig. 5 (download XLSX )

Experimental data points for Fig. 5a–f.

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Jiang, C., Wang, H.S., Liu, C. et al. Signatures of magnetism in zigzag graphene nanoribbons embedded in a hexagonal boron nitride lattice. Nat. Mater. 24, 1592–1599 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02317-4

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