posted on 2022-01-18, 19:37authored byPingfan Gu, Yujia Sun, Cong Wang, Yuxuan Peng, Yaozheng Zhu, Xing Cheng, Kai Yuan, Chao Lyu, Xuelu Liu, Qinghai Tan, Qinghua Zhang, Lin Gu, Zhi Wang, Hanwen Wang, Zheng Han, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Jinbo Yang, Jun Zhang, Wei Ji, Ping-Heng Tan, Yu Ye
Materials
with a quasi-one-dimensional stripy magnetic order often
exhibit low crystal and magnetic symmetries, thus allowing the presence
of various energy coupling terms and giving rise to macroscopic interplay
between spin, charge, and phonon. In this work, we performed optical,
electrical and magnetic characterizations combined with first-principles
calculations on a van der Waals antiferromagnetic insulator chromium
oxychloride (CrOCl). We detected the subtle phase transition behaviors
of exfoliated CrOCl under varying temperature and magnetic field and
clarified its controversial spin structures. We found that the antiferromagnetism
and its air stability persist down to few-layer samples, making it
a promising candidate for future 2D spintronic devices. Additionally,
we verified the magnetoelastic coupling effect in CrOCl, allowing
for the potential manipulation of the magnetic states via electric
field or strain. These virtues of CrOCl provide us with an ideal platform
for fundamental research on spin-charge, spin-phonon coupling, and
spin-interactions.