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Register a new userSpin-flop transition in atomically thin MnPS$_3$ crystals
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The magnetic state of atomically thin semiconducting layered antiferromagnets such as CrI$_3$ and CrCl$_3$ can be probed by forming tunnel barriers and measuring their resistance as a function of magnetic field ($H$) and temperature ($T$). This is possible because the tunneling magnetoresistance originates from a spin-filtering effect sensitive to the relative orientation of the magnetization in different layers, i.e., to the magnetic state of the multilayers. For systems in which antiferromagnetism occurs within an individual layer, however, no spin-filtering occurs: it is unclear whether this strategy can work. To address this issue, we investigate tunnel transport through atomically thin crystals of MnPS$_3$, a van der Waals semiconductor that in the bulk exhibits easy-axis antiferromagnetic order within the layers. For thick multilayers below $Tsimeq 78$ K, a $T$-dependent magnetoresistance sets-in at $sim 5$ T, and is found to track the boundary between the antiferromagnetic and the spin-flop phases known from bulk magnetization measurements. The magnetoresistance persists down to individual MnPS$_3$ monolayers with nearly unchanged characteristic temperature and magnetic field scales, albeit with a different dependence on $H$. We discuss the implications of these finding for the magnetic state of atomically thin MnPS$_3$ crystals, conclude that antiferromagnetic correlations persist down to the level of individual monolayers, and that tunneling magnetoresistance does allow magnetism in 2D insulating materials to be detected even in the absence of spin-filtering.
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Chromium triiodide, CrI$_3$, is emerging as a promising magnetic two-dimensional semiconductor where spins are ferromagnetically aligned within a single layer. Potential applications in spintronics arise from an antiferromagnetic ordering between adjacent layers that gives rise to spin filtering and a large magnetoresistance in tunnelling devices. This key feature appears only in thin multilayers and it is not inherited from bulk crystals, where instead neighbouring layers share the same ferromagnetic spin orientation. This discrepancy between bulk and thin samples is unexpected, as magnetic ordering between layers arises from exchange interactions that are local in nature and should not depend strongly on thickness. Here we solve this controversy and show through polarization resolved Raman spectroscopy that thin multilayers do not undergo a structural phase transition typical of bulk crystals. As a consequence, a different stacking pattern is present in thin and bulk samples at the temperatures at which magnetism sets in and, according to previous first-principles simulations, this results in a different interlayer magnetic ordering. Our experimental findings provide evidence for the strong interplay between stacking order and magnetism in CrI$_3$, opening interesting perspectives to design the magnetic state of van der Waals multilayers.
Spin-flop transition (SFT) consists in a jump-like reversal of antiferromagnetic magnetic moments into a non-collinear state when the magnetic field increases above the critical value. Potentially the SFT can be utilized in many applications of a rapidly developing antiferromagnetic spintronics. However, the difficulty of using them in conventional antiferromagnets lies in (a) too large switching magnetic fields (b) the need for presence of a magnetic anisotropy, and (c) requirement to apply magnetic field along the correspondent anisotropy axis. In this work we propose to use artificial ferrimagnets in which the spin-flop transition occurs without anisotropy and the transition field can be lowered by adjusting exchange coupling in the structure. This is proved by experiment on artificial Fe-Gd ferrimagnets where usage of Pd spacers allowed us to suppress the transition field by two orders of magnitude.
The field of two-dimensional materials has been developing at an impressive pace, with atomically thin crystals of an increasing number of different compounds that have become available, together with techniques enabling their assembly into functional heterostructures. The strategy to detect these atomically thin crystals has however remained unchanged since the discovery of graphene. Such an absence of evolution is starting to pose problems because for many of the 2D materials of current interest the optical contrast provided by the commonly used detection procedure is insufficient to identify the presence of individual monolayers or to determine unambiguously the thickness of atomically thin multilayers. Here we explore an alternative detection strategy, in which the enhancement of optical contrast originates from the use of optically inhomogeneous substrates, leading to diffusively reflected light. Owing to its peculiar polarization properties and to its angular distribution, diffusively reflected light allows a strong contrast enhancement to be achieved through the implementation of suitable illumination-detection schemes. We validate this conclusion by carrying out a detailed quantitative analysis of optical contrast, which fully reproduces our experimental observations on over 60 WSe$_2$ mono-, bi-, and trilayers. We further validate the proposed strategy by extending our analysis to atomically thin phosphorene, InSe, and graphene crystals. Our conclusion is that the use of diffusively reflected light to detect and identify atomically thin layers is an interesting alternative to the common detection scheme based on Fabry-Perot interference, because it enables atomically thin layers to be detected on substrates others than the commonly used Si/SiO$_2$, and it may offer higher sensitivity depending on the specific 2D material considered.
Exfoliated chromium triiodide (CrI$_3$) is a layered van der Waals (vdW) magnetic insulator that consists of ferromagnetic layers coupled through antiferromagnetic interlayer exchange. The resulting permutations of magnetic configurations combined with the underlying crystal symmetry produces tunable magneto-optical phenomena that is unique to the two-dimensional (2D) limit. Here, we report the direct observation of 2D magnons through magneto-Raman spectroscopy with optical selection rules that are strictly determined by the honeycomb lattice and magnetic states of atomically thin CrI$_3$. In monolayers, we observe an acoustic magnon mode of ~0.3 meV with cross-circularly polarized selection rules locked to the magnetization direction. These unique selection rules arise from the discrete conservation of angular momentum of photons and magnons dictated by threefold rotational symmetry in a rotational analogue to Umklapp scattering. In bilayers, by tuning between the layered antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic-like states, we observe the switching of two magnon modes. The bilayer structure also enables Raman activity from the optical magnon mode at ~17 meV (~4.2 THz) that is otherwise Raman-silent in the monolayer. From these measurements, we quantitatively extract the spin wave gap, magnetic anisotropy, intralayer and interlayer exchange constants, and establish 2D magnets as a new system for exploring magnon physics.
Atomically thin MoS$_{2}$ crystals have been recognized as a quasi-2D semiconductor with remarkable physics properties. This letter reports our Raman scattering measurements on multilayer and monolayer MoS$_{2}$, especially in the low-frequency range ($<$50 cm$^{-1}$). We find two low-frequency Raman modes with contrasting thickness dependence. With increasing the number of MoS$_{2}$ layers, one shows a significant increase in frequency while the other decreases following a 1/N (N denotes layer-number) trend. With the aid of first-principle calculations we assign the former as the shear mode $E_{2g}^{2}$ and the latter as the compression vibrational mode. The opposite evolution of the two modes with thickness demonstrates novel vibrational modes in atomically thin crystal as well as a new and more precise way to characterize thickness of atomically thin MoS$_{2}$ films. In addition, we observe a broad feature around 38 cm$^{-1}$ (~5 meV) which is visible only under near-resonance excitation and pinned at the fixed energy independent of thickness. We interpret the feature as an electronic Raman scattering associated with the spin-orbit coupling induced splitting in conduction band at K points in their Brillouin zone.
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