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Covalent 2D Cr$_2$Te$_3$ ferromagnet

To broaden the scope of van der Waals 2D magnets, we report the synthesis and magnetism of covalent 2D magnetic Cr$_2$Te$_3$ with a thickness down to one-unit-cell. The 2D Cr$_2$Te$_3$ crystals exhibit robust ferromagnetism with a Curie temperature of 180 K, a large perpendicular anisotropy of 7*105 J m-3, and a high coercivity of ~ 4.6 kG at 20 K. First-principles calculations further show a transition from canted to collinear ferromagnetism, a transition from perpendicular to in-plane anisotropy, and emergent half-metallic behavior in atomically-thin Cr$_2$Te$_3$, suggesting its potential application for injecting carriers with high spin polarization into spintronic devices.