Enhanced Curie temperature and large spin Hall conductivity due to the magnetic proximity effect in CrI3/Pt heterostructures

Metal/van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures enable versatile interfacial spin control for spintronic applications. Using density-functional theory, we investigate the interfacial magnetic proximity effect and spin-transport response in CrI3/Pt bilayer heterostructures. The proximity effect not only raises the Curie temperature of CrI3 from 45 to 70 K but also induces interfacial spin polarization in the Pt surface layers. This behavior is consistent with orbital-selective hybridization involving Pt dxz/yz and dz2 states, which generates pronounced spin polarization near the Fermi level. Within the same computational setup, the Pt layer in the CrI3/Pt heterostructure exhibits a spin Hall conductivity (σSH) of 2890 S cm−1, corresponding to an enhancement of about 45% relative to an isolated Pt slab with the same thickness and in-plane lattice constant. This high efficiency persists in CrI3/Pt/Co trilayers, suggesting potential device relevance. Our results suggest that interfacial orbital reconstruction plays an important role in interfacial magnetism and spin transport in vdW magnets, and that CrI3/Pt provides a viable platform for efficient spin–orbit torque generation in two-dimensional spintronic devices.