Optimal Control Drives Ultrafast and Energy-Efficient Magnetization Switching in van der Waals Magnets
July 2026 Mohammad H. Badarneh†; PeiYu Cai†; Elton J. G. Santos Advanced Materials (Accepted)

Co-first author. Conducted atomistic spin dynamics simulations on CrSBr to benchmark the energy costs of static-field reversal and calibrate the baseline for Optimal Control Theory (OCT) protocols, which achieve sub-picosecond switching with femtojoule energy costs in vdW magnets.

Self-Integrated Quantum Imaging of an All-van der Waals Spin-Orbit Torque System
June 2026 Xi Zhang; Jingcheng Zhou; Chaowei Hu; PeiYu Cai; Kuangyin Deng; Chuangtang Wang; Nishkarsh Agarwal; Hanshang Jin; Faris A. Al-Matouq; Stelo Xu; Roshan S. Trivedi; Senlei Li; Sumedh Rathi; Hanyi Lu; Zhigang Jiang; Valentin Taufour; Robert Hovden; Liuyan Zhao; Ran Cheng; Xiaodong Xu; Elton J. G. Santos; Jiun-Haw Chu; Chunhui Rita Du; Hailong Wang Nature Communications (2026)

Disentangled field-like and damping-like torque contributions in deterministic SOT switching, clarifying the SOT/STT interplay in the Fe3GaTe2/hBN heterostructure.

Laser-Induced Topological Toggle Switching at Room Temperature in the van der Waals Ferromagnet Fe3GaTe2
June 2026 Charlie W. F. Freeman; Woohyun Cho; Paul S. Keatley; PeiYu Cai; Elton J. G. Santos; Robert J. Hicken; H. Yang; Hidekazu Kurebayashi; Murat Cubukcu; Maciej Dabrowski npj Spintronics 4, 24 (2026)

Micromagnetic simulations validated the mechanism for all-optical toggle switching, demonstrating laser-induced heating and rapid quenching of magnetic order enables skyrmion bubble formation at record-low 5 mT fields.

Room-Temperature Skyrmionic Synapse in 2D Ferromagnet Fe3GaTe2 Operating via Collective Spin Texture Transformation
May 2026 Jixiang Huang†; Tongji Zhu†; PeiYu Cai†; Xiaoming Ma†; Zhen Wang†; Ruifu Zhang; Yi Hao; Jingdi Lu; Liubing He; Jun Xu; Yuejie Zhang; Wanjun Jiang; Jing Tao; Shiming Lei; Pavel Parchinskiy; Lingfei Wang; Wei Niu; Elton J. G. Santos; Xiaoqian Zhang; Peng Li Advanced Materials e20288 (2026)

Co-first author. GPU-accelerated micromagnetic simulations validated the deterministic, collective skyrmion-to-stripe transformation in Fe3GaTe2 for neuromorphic synaptic devices, achieving 0.66 pJ per operation and 96.1% MNIST accuracy.

Thickness-Dependent Skyrmion Evolution in Fe3GeTe2 During Magnetization Reversal
November 2025 Jennifer Garland; John Fullerton; PeiYu Cai; Rabindra Basnet; Santosh Karki Chhetri; Jin Hu; Elton J. G. Santos; Yue Li; Charudatta Phatak; Amanda Petford-Long Advanced Functional Materials e18239 (2025)

Energy density analysis across multiple thicknesses quantified confinement effects on topological stability and established a theoretical thickness threshold for stable skyrmion formation.

Local Inversion Symmetry Breaking and Thermodynamic Evidence for Ferrimagnetism in Fe3GaTe2
July 2025 Sang-Eon Lee; Yue Li; Yeonkyu Lee; W. Kice Brown; PeiYu Cai; Jinyoung Yun; Chanyoung Lee; Alex Moon; Lingrui Mei; Jaeyong Kim; Yan Xin; Julie A. Borchers; Thomas W. Heitmann; Matthias Frontzek; William D. Ratcliff; Gregory T. McCandless; Julia Y. Chan; Elton J. G. Santos; Jeehoon Kim; Charudatta M. Phatak; Vadym Kulichenko; Luis Balicas ACS Nano 19, 28702-28718 (2025)

Theoretical confirmation of how local symmetry breaking stabilizes Néel and Bloch-hybrid skyrmions in centrosymmetric Fe3GaTe2, bridging structural disorder analysis with chiral texture observations.

Epitaxial Growth of Large-Scale 2D CrTe2 Films on Amorphous Silicon Wafers With Low Thermal Budget
March 2024 Xiaoqian Zhang; Yue Li; Qiangsheng Lu; Xueqiang Xiang; Xiaozhen Sun; Chunli Tang; Muntasir Mahdi; Clayton Conner; Jacob Cook; Yuzan Xiong; Jerad Inman; Wencan Jin; Chang Liu; PeiYu Cai; Elton J. G. Santos; Charudatta Phatak; Wei Zhang; Nan Gao; Wei Niu; Guang Bian; Peng Li; Dapeng Yu; Shibing Long Advanced Materials 2311591 (2024) — Journal Cover

Micromagnetic simulations revealed the critical role of interfacial DMI in stabilizing Néel-type skyrmions within the CrTe2/Bi2Te3 system and estimated the required DMI strength.