No Arabic abstract
How a certain ground state of complex physical systems emerges, especially in two-dimensional materials, is a fundamental question in condensed-matter physics. A particularly interesting case is systems belonging to the class of XY Hamiltonian where the magnetic order parameter of conventional nature is unstable in two-dimensional materials leading to a Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition. Here, we report how the XXZ-type antiferromagnetic order of a magnetic van der Waals material, NiPS3, behaves upon reducing the thickness and ultimately becomes unstable in the monolayer limit. Our experimental data are consistent with the findings based on renormalization group theory that at low temperatures a two-dimensional XXZ system behaves like a two-dimensional XY one, which cannot have a long-range order at finite temperatures. This work provides experimental examination of the XY magnetism in the atomically thin limit and opens new opportunities of exploiting these fundamental theorems of magnetism using magnetic van der Waals materials.
Magnetism in two-dimensional materials is not only of fundamental scientific interest but also a promising candidate for numerous applications. However, studies so far, especially the experimental ones, have been mostly limited to the magnetism arising from defects, vacancies, edges or chemical dopants which are all extrinsic effects. Here, we report on the observation of intrinsic antiferromagnetic ordering in the two-dimensional limit. By monitoring the Raman peaks that arise from zone folding due to antiferromagnetic ordering at the transition temperature, we demonstrate that FePS3 exhibits an Ising-type antiferromagnetic ordering down to the monolayer limit, in good agreement with the Onsager solution for two-dimensional order-disorder transition. The transition temperature remains almost independent of the thickness from bulk to the monolayer limit with TN ~118 K, indicating that the weak interlayer interaction has little effect on the antiferromagnetic ordering.
Nuclear magnetism in n-doped semiconductors with positive hyperfine constant is revisited. Two kinds of nuclear magnetic ordering can be induced by resident electrons in a deeply cooled nuclear spin system. At positive nuclear spin temperature below a critical value, randomly oriented nuclear spin polarons similar to that predicted by I. Merkulov [I. Merkulov, Physics of the Solid State 40, 930 (1998)] should emerge. These polarons are oriented randomly and within each polaron nuclear and electron spins are aligned antiferromagnetically. At negative nuclear spin temperature below a critical value we predict another type of magnetic ordering - dynamically induced nuclear ferromagnet. This is a long-range ferromagnetically ordered state involving both electrons and nuclei. It can form if electron spin relaxation is dominated by the hyperfine coupling, rather than by the spin-orbit interaction. Application of the theory to the n-doped GaAs suggests that the ferromagnetic order may be reached at experimentally achievable nuclear spin temperature $Theta_N approx 0.5$ $mu$K and lattice temperature $T_L approx 5$ K.
We investigate magnetic domain walls in a single fcc Mn layer on Re(0001) employing spin-polarized STM, atom manipulation, and spin dynamics simulations. The low symmetry of the row-wise antiferromagnetic (1Q) state leads to a new type of domain wall which connects rotational 1Q domains by a transient 2Q state with characteristic 90$^circ$ angles between neighboring magnetic moments. The domain wall properties depend on their orientation and their width of about 2 nm essentially results from a balance of Heisenberg and higher-order exchange interactions. Atom manipulation allows domain wall imaging with atomic spin-resolution, as well as domain wall positioning, and we demonstrate that the force to move an atom is anisotropic on the 1Q domain.
Mermin-Wagner-Coleman theorem predicts no long-range magnetic order at finite temperature in the two-dimensional (2D) isotropic systems, but a quasi-long-range order with a divergent correlation length at the Kosterlitz-Thouless (KT) transition for planar magnets. As a representative of two-dimensional planar antiferromagnets, single-layer CoPS3 carries the promise of monolayer antiferromagnetic platforms for the ultimately thin spintronics. Here, with the aid of magnetostriction which is sensitive to the local magnetic order, we observe the signatured phonon mode splitting of below TKT in monolayer CoPS3, revealing the presence of quasi-long-range ordering in XY-type antiferromagnet. Moreover, the ratio (J/J) between the interlayer and intralayer interactions, which characterizes the 2D behaviors, is evaluated to be around 0.03 for the first time. Our results provide an efficient method to detect the quasi-long-range antiferromagnetic ordering in the two-dimensional magnets down to monolayer limit.
The question of structural disorder and its effects on magnetism is relevant to a number of spin liquid candidate materials. Although commonly thought of as a route to spin glass behavior, here we describe a system in which the structural disorder results in long-range antiferromagnetic order due to local symmetry breaking. Nd$_2$ScNbO$_7$ is shown to have a dispersionless gapped excitation observed in other neodymium pyrochlores below T$_N$ = 0.37 K through polarized and inelastic neutron scattering. However the dispersing spin waves are not observed. This excited mode is shown to occur in only 14(2) % of the neodymium ions through spectroscopy and is consistent with total scattering measurements as well as the magnitude of the dynamic moment 0.26(2) $mu_B$. The remaining magnetic species order completely into the all-in all-out Ising antiferromagnetic structure. This can be seen as a result of local symmetry breaking due disordered Sc$^{+3}$ and Nb$^{+5}$ ions about the A-site. From this work, it has been established that B-site disorder restores the dipole-like behaviour of the Nd$^{+3}$ ions compared to the Nd$_2$B$_2$O$_7$ parent series.