No Arabic abstract
Gate-induced magnetic switching in bilayer CrI$_3$ has opened new ways for the design of novel low-power magnetic memories based on van der Waals heterostructures. The proposed switching mechanism seems to be fully dominated by electrostatic doping. Here we explain, by first-principle calculations, the ferromagnetic transition in doped bilayer CrI$_3$. For the case of a very small electron doping, our calculations predict the formation of magnetic polarons (ferrons, fluctuons) where the electron is self-locked in a ferromagnetic droplet in an antiferromagnetic insulating matrix. The self-trapping of holes is impossible, at least, within our approximation.
The magnetic properties in two-dimensional van der Waals materials depend sensitively on structure. CrI3, as an example, has been recently demonstrated to exhibit distinct magnetic properties depending on the layer thickness and stacking order. Bulk CrI3 is ferromagnetic (FM) with a Curie temperature of 61 K and a rhombohedral layer stacking, while few-layer CrI3 has a layered antiferromagnetic (AFM) phase with a lower ordering temperature of 45 K and a monoclinic stacking. In this work, we use cryogenic magnetic force microscopy to investigate CrI3 flakes in the intermediate thickness range (25 - 200 nm) and find that the two types of magnetic orders hence the stacking orders can coexist in the same flake, with a layer of ~13 nm at each surface being in the layered AFM phase similar to few-layer CrI3 and the rest in the bulk FM phase. The switching of the bulk moment proceeds through a remnant state with nearly compensated magnetic moment along the c-axis, indicating formation of c-axis domains allowed by a weak interlayer coupling strength in the rhombohedral phase. Our results provide a comprehensive picture on the magnetism in CrI3 and point to the possibility of engineering magnetic heterostructures within the same material.
Antiferromagnetism (AF) in AB-stacked centrosymmetric bilayer (BL) CrI$_3$ breaks both spatial inversion ($P$) and time-reversal ($T$) symmetries but maintains the combined $PT$ symmetry, thus inducing novel second-order nonlinear optical (NLO) responses such as second-harmonic generation (SHG), linear electric-optic effect (LEO) and bulk photovoltaic effect (BPVE). In this work, we calculate AF-induced NLO responses of the BL CrI$_3$ based on the density functional theory with the generalized gradient approximation (GGA) plus onsite Coulomb correlation (U), i.e., the GGA+U method. Interestingly, we find that the magnetic SHG, LEO and photocurrent in the AF BL CrI$_3$ are huge, being comparable or even larger than that of the well-known nonmagnetic noncentrosymmetric semiconductors. For example, the calculated SHG coefficients are in the same order of magnitude as that of MoS$_2$ monolayer (ML), the most promising 2D material for NLO devices. The calculated LEO coefficients are almost three times larger than that of MoS$_2$ ML. The calculated NLO photocurrent in the CrI$_3$ BL is among the largest values predicted so far for the BPVE materials. On the other hand, unlike nonmagnetic semiconductors, the NLO responses in the AF BL CrI$_3$ are nonreciprocal and also switchable by rotating magnetization direction. Therefore, our interesting findings indicate that the AF BL CrI$_3$ will not only provide a valuable platform for exploring new physics of low-dimensional magnetism but also have promising applications in magnetic NLO and LEO devices such as frequency conversion, electro-optical switches, and light signal modulators as well as high energy conversion efficiency photovoltaic solar cells.
We lay the foundation for determining the microscopic spin interactions in two-dimensional (2D) ferromagnets by combining angle-dependent ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) experiments on high quality CrI$_3$ single crystals with theoretical modeling based on symmetries. We discover that the Kitaev interaction is the strongest in this material with $K sim -5.2$ meV, 25 times larger than the Heisenberg exchange $J sim -0.2$ meV, and responsible for opening the $sim$5 meV gap at the Dirac points in the spin-wave dispersion. Furthermore, we find that the symmetric off-diagonal anisotropy $Gamma sim -67.5$ $mu$eV, though small, is crucial for opening a $sim$0.3 meV gap in the magnon spectrum at the zone center and stabilizing ferromagnetism in the 2D limit. The high resolution of the FMR data further reveals a $mu$eV-scale quadrupolar contribution to the $S=3/2$ magnetism. Our identification of the underlying exchange anisotropies opens paths toward 2D ferromagnets with higher $T_text{C}$ as well as magnetically frustrated quantum spin liquids based on Kitaev physics.
The recent discovery of 2D magnets has revealed various intriguing phenomena due to the coupling between spin and other degree of freedoms (such as helical photoluminescence, nonreciprocal SHG). Previous research on the spin-phonon coupling effect mainly focuses on the renormalization of phonon frequency. Here we demonstrate that the Raman polarization selection rules of optical phonons can be greatly modified by the magnetic ordering in 2D magnet CrI$_3$. For monolayer samples, the dominant A$rm_{1g}$ peak shows abnormally high intensity in the cross polarization channel at low temperature, which is forbidden by the selection rule based on the lattice symmetry. While for bilayer, this peak is absent in the cross polarization channel for the layered antiferromagnetic (AFM) state and reappears when it is tuned to the ferromagnetic (FM) state by an external magnetic field. Our findings shed light on exploring the emergent magneto-optical effects in 2D magnets.
The recently discovered two-dimensional (2D) magnetic insulator CrI$_3$ is an intriguing case for basic research and spintronic applications since it is a ferromagnet in the bulk, but an antiferromagnet in bilayer form, with its magnetic ordering amenable to external manipulations. Using first-principles quantum transport approach, we predict that injecting unpolarized charge current parallel to the interface of bilayer-CrI$_3$/monolayer-TaSe$_2$ van der Waals heterostructure will induce spin-orbit torque (SOT) and thereby driven dynamics of magnetization on the first monolayer of CrI$_3$ in direct contact with TaSe$_2$. By combining calculated complex angular dependence of SOT with the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation for classical dynamics of magnetization, we demonstrate that current pulses can switch the direction of magnetization on the first monolayer to become parallel to that of the second monolayer, thereby converting CrI$_3$ from antiferromagnet to ferromagnet while not requiring any external magnetic field. We explain the mechanism of this reversible current-driven nonequilibrium phase transition by showing that first monolayer of CrI$_3$ carries current due to evanescent wavefunctions injected by metallic transition metal dichalcogenide TaSe$_2$, while concurrently acquiring strong spin-orbit coupling (SOC) via such proximity effect, whereas the second monolayer of CrI$_3$ remains insulating. The transition can be detected by passing vertical read current through the vdW heterostructure, encapsulated by bilayer of hexagonal boron nitride and sandwiched between graphite electrodes, where we find tunneling magnetoresistance of $simeq 240$%.