B5N5 monolayer: a room-temperature light element antiferromagnetic insulator

Abstract

We demonstrate theoretically that an intrinsic antiferromagnetic phase exists in monolayer materials consisting of non-magnetic light atoms, and propose that B₅N₅ with a decorated bounce lattice is a thermodynamically stable two-dimensional antiferromagnetic insulator by performing state-of-the-art density functional theory calculations. The antiferromagnetic phase originates from spontaneous symmetry breaking at the nearly flat bands in the vicinity of the Fermi energy. The flat bands are formed by purely s–p_z orbitals and are spin degenerate. A perpendicular electric field can remove the spin degeneracy and a prototype controllable dual spin filter with 100% spin polarization is proposed. Our proposal offers a possible two-dimensional atomically thick antiferromagnetic insulator.