Electronic properties of van der Waals materials are highly sensitive to their stacking modes. To explore sliding effects in the two-dimensional (2D) spintronics, we construct a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) using sliding bilayer graphene or $h$-BN as barriers and the recently synthesized room-temperature 2D ferromagnet $\mathrm{F}{\mathrm{e}}_3\mathrm{GaT}{\mathrm{e}}_2$ as electrodes. Our ab initio quantum transport simulations with noncollinear framework reveal that layer sliding effectively modulates both the spin transport properties and dynamics of the MTJ. The tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) reaches $185000\%–230000\%$ (graphene) and $130000\%–200000\%$ ($h$-BN), surpassing theoretically predicted TMR of conventional MgO-based MTJs by two orders of magnitude. Furthermore, the decay rate of the spin-transfer torkance is found to depend on both the degree of slippage and the choice of barrier material, with the maximal spin-transfer torque reaching 230 µeV/V in the bilayer $h$-BN counterpart with AA-stacking mode. Our calculation suggests that sliding is an effective means to fine tune the performance of next-generation 2D spintronic devices.

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• First-principles calculations
• Spin transfer torque
• Spintronics
• Magnetic tunnel junctions