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Spintronics devices rely on the generation and manipulation of spin currents. Two-dimensional transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are among the most promising materials for a spin current generation due to a lack of inversion symmetry at the interface with the magnetic material. Here, we report on the fabrication of Yttrium Iron Garnet(YIG)/TMD heterostructures by means of a crude and fast method. While the magnetic insulator single-crystalline YIG thin films were grown by magnetron sputtering, the TMDs, namely MoS 2 and MoSe 2 , were directly deposited onto YIG films using an automated mechanical abrasion method. Despite the brute force aspect of the method, it produces high-quality interfaces, which are suitable for spintronic device applications. The spin current density and the effective spin mixing conductance were measured by ferromagnetic resonance, whose values found are among the highest reported in the literature. Our method can be scaled to produce ferromagnetic materials/TMD heterostructures on a large scale, further advancing their potential for practical applications.

We can shape the electronic and phonon properties of Bi 2 Te 3 crystals via the variation of the number of layers. Here, we report a Raman study with the aid of first-principles calculations on few-layered Bi 2 Te 3 systems ranging from 5 to 24 nm layer thickness using 1.92, 2.41 and 2.54 eV excitation energies. We examine how the frequency position, intensity and lineshape of the main Raman modes (A 1 1g , E 2 g , and A 2 1g ) behave by the variation of the layer thickness and excitation energy. We observed a frequency dispersion on the number of layers of the main modes, indicating changes in the inter- and intra-layers interaction. A resonant Raman condition is reached for all modes for samples with 11 and 18 nm thickness because of van Hove singularities at the electronic density of states. Also, the Breit-Wigner-Fano line shape of the A 2 1g mode shows an increase of electron-phonon coupling for thick layers. These results suggest a relevant influence of numbers of layers on the Raman scattering mechanics in Bi 2 Te 3 systems., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing financial interest., (This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.)