Coexistence of structural and magnetic phases in van der Waals magnet CrI3

Jaume Meseguer-Sanchez; Catalin Popescu; Jose Luis Garcia-Munoz; Hubertus Luetkens; Grigol Taniashvili; Efren Navarro-Moratalla; Zurab Guguchia; Elton J. G. Santos

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-26342-4

Coexistence of structural and magnetic phases in van der Waals magnet CrI3

Jaume Meseguer-Sanchez, Catalin Popescu, Jose Luis Garcia-Munoz, Hubertus Luetkens, Grigol Taniashvili, Efren Navarro-Moratalla^*, Zurab Guguchia, Elton J. G. Santos

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of Physics and Astronomy

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

CrI3 has raised as an important system to the emergent field of two-dimensional van der Waals magnetic materials. However, it is still unclear why CrI3 which has a ferromagnetic rhombohedral structure in bulk, changed to anti-ferromagnetic monoclinic at thin layers. Here we show that this behaviour is due to the coexistence of both monoclinic and rhombohedral crystal phases followed by three magnetic transitions at TC1 = 61 K, TC2 = 50 K and TC3 = 25 K. Each transition corresponds to a certain fraction of the magnetically ordered volume as well as monoclinic and rhombohedral proportion. The different phases are continuously accessed as a function of the temperature over a broad range of magnitudes. Our findings suggest that the challenge of understanding the magnetic properties of thin layers CrI3 is in general a coexisting structural-phase problem mediated by the volume-wise competition between magnetic phases already present in bulk.

Original language	English
Article number	6265
Pages (from-to)	1-7
Number of pages	7
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	12
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26342-4
Publication status	Published - 1 Nov 2021

Access to Document

10.1038/s41467-021-26342-4Licence: Creative Commons: Attribution (CC-BY)

main_v092021cleanAccepted author manuscript, 1.57 MB

Cite this

@article{404b644c46a843b6be3ad0d312e7f250,

title = "Coexistence of structural and magnetic phases in van der Waals magnet CrI3",

abstract = "CrI3 has raised as an important system to the emergent field of two-dimensional van der Waals magnetic materials. However, it is still unclear why CrI3 which has a ferromagnetic rhombohedral structure in bulk, changed to anti-ferromagnetic monoclinic at thin layers. Here we show that this behaviour is due to the coexistence of both monoclinic and rhombohedral crystal phases followed by three magnetic transitions at TC1 = 61 K, TC2 = 50 K and TC3 = 25 K. Each transition corresponds to a certain fraction of the magnetically ordered volume as well as monoclinic and rhombohedral proportion. The different phases are continuously accessed as a function of the temperature over a broad range of magnitudes. Our findings suggest that the challenge of understanding the magnetic properties of thin layers CrI3 is in general a coexisting structural-phase problem mediated by the volume-wise competition between magnetic phases already present in bulk.",

author = "Jaume Meseguer-Sanchez and Catalin Popescu and Garcia-Munoz, \{Jose Luis\} and Hubertus Luetkens and Grigol Taniashvili and Efren Navarro-Moratalla and Zurab Guguchia and Santos, \{Elton J. G.\}",

year = "2021",

month = nov,

day = "1",

doi = "10.1038/s41467-021-26342-4",

language = "English",

volume = "12",

pages = "1--7",

journal = "Nature Communications",

issn = "2041-1723",

publisher = "Nature Publishing Group",

number = "1",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Coexistence of structural and magnetic phases in van der Waals magnet CrI3

AU - Meseguer-Sanchez, Jaume

AU - Popescu, Catalin

AU - Garcia-Munoz, Jose Luis

AU - Luetkens, Hubertus

AU - Taniashvili, Grigol

AU - Navarro-Moratalla, Efren

AU - Guguchia, Zurab

AU - Santos, Elton J. G.

PY - 2021/11/1

Y1 - 2021/11/1

N2 - CrI3 has raised as an important system to the emergent field of two-dimensional van der Waals magnetic materials. However, it is still unclear why CrI3 which has a ferromagnetic rhombohedral structure in bulk, changed to anti-ferromagnetic monoclinic at thin layers. Here we show that this behaviour is due to the coexistence of both monoclinic and rhombohedral crystal phases followed by three magnetic transitions at TC1 = 61 K, TC2 = 50 K and TC3 = 25 K. Each transition corresponds to a certain fraction of the magnetically ordered volume as well as monoclinic and rhombohedral proportion. The different phases are continuously accessed as a function of the temperature over a broad range of magnitudes. Our findings suggest that the challenge of understanding the magnetic properties of thin layers CrI3 is in general a coexisting structural-phase problem mediated by the volume-wise competition between magnetic phases already present in bulk.

AB - CrI3 has raised as an important system to the emergent field of two-dimensional van der Waals magnetic materials. However, it is still unclear why CrI3 which has a ferromagnetic rhombohedral structure in bulk, changed to anti-ferromagnetic monoclinic at thin layers. Here we show that this behaviour is due to the coexistence of both monoclinic and rhombohedral crystal phases followed by three magnetic transitions at TC1 = 61 K, TC2 = 50 K and TC3 = 25 K. Each transition corresponds to a certain fraction of the magnetically ordered volume as well as monoclinic and rhombohedral proportion. The different phases are continuously accessed as a function of the temperature over a broad range of magnitudes. Our findings suggest that the challenge of understanding the magnetic properties of thin layers CrI3 is in general a coexisting structural-phase problem mediated by the volume-wise competition between magnetic phases already present in bulk.

UR - https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41467-021-26342-4/MediaObjects/41467_2021_26342_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

UR - https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41467-021-26342-4/MediaObjects/41467_2021_26342_MOESM2_ESM.pdf

U2 - 10.1038/s41467-021-26342-4

DO - 10.1038/s41467-021-26342-4

M3 - Article

SN - 2041-1723

VL - 12

SP - 1

EP - 7

JO - Nature Communications

JF - Nature Communications

IS - 1

M1 - 6265

ER -

Coexistence of structural and magnetic phases in van der Waals magnet CrI3

Abstract

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this