In a conventional magnetic material, a long-range magnetic order develops in three dimensions, and reducing a layer number weakens its magnetism. Here we demonstrate anomalous layer-number-independent ferromagnetism down to the two-dimensional (2D) limit in a metastable phase of Cr3Te4. We fabricated Cr3Te4 thin films by molecular-beam epitaxy and found that Cr3Te4 could host two distinct ferromagnetic phases characterized with different Curie temperatures (T C). One is the bulk-like “high-T C phase” showing room-temperature ferromagnetism, which is consistent with previous studies. The other is the metastable “low-T C phase” with T C ≈ 160 K, which exhibits a layer-number-independent T C down to the 2D limit in marked contrast with the conventional high-T C phase, demonstrating a purely 2D nature of its ferromagnetism. Such significant differences between two distinct phases could be attributed to a small variation in the doping level, making this material attractive for future ultracompact spintronics applications with potential gate-tunable room-temperature 2D ferromagnetism.

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