Litcius/Paper detail

Magnetic Order and Symmetry in the 2D Semiconductor CrSBr

Kihong Lee, Avalon H. Dismukes, Evan J. Telford, Ren A. Wiscons, Jue Wang, Xiaodong Xu, Colin Nuckolls, Cory R. Dean, Xavier Roy, Xiaoyang Zhu

2021Nano Letters411 citationsDOIOpen Access PDF

Abstract

The advent of two-dimensional (2D) magnets offers unprecedented control over electrons and spins. A key factor in determining exchange coupling and magnetic order is symmetry. Here, we apply second harmonic generation (SHG) to probe a 2D magnetic semiconductor CrSBr. We find that monolayers are ferromagnetically ordered below 146 K, an observation enabled by the discovery of a large magnetic dipole SHG effect in the centrosymmetric structure. In multilayers, the ferromagnetic monolayers are coupled antiferromagnetically, and in contrast to other 2D magnets, the Néel temperature of CrSBr increases with decreasing layer number. We identify magnetic dipole and magnetic toroidal moments as order parameters of the ferromagnetic monolayer and antiferromagnetic bilayer, respectively. These findings establish CrSBr as an exciting 2D magnetic semiconductor and extend the SHG probe of magnetic symmetry to the monolayer limit, opening the door to exploring the applications of magnetic-electronic coupling and the magnetic toroidal moment.

Topics & Concepts

Condensed matter physicsSpintronicsMagnetic momentFerromagnetismMagnetizationMaterials scienceMagnetic dipoleMagnetic force microscopeMagnetic semiconductorAntiferromagnetismMagnetic domainMagnetismMagnetic structureDipoleMagnetic fieldPhysicsQuantum mechanics2D Materials and ApplicationsMultiferroics and related materialsTopological Materials and Phenomena