Inducing Magnetic Phase Transitions in Monolayer CrI${}_3$ via Lattice Deformations

Abstract

Atomically thin films of layered chromium triiodide (CrI${}_3$) have recently been regarded as suitable candidates to a wide spectrum of technologically relevant applications, mainly owing to the opportunity they offer to achieve a reversible transition between coexisting in-plane ferro- and out-of-plane antiferro-magnetic orders. However, no routes for inducing such a transition have been designed down to the single-layer limit. Here, we address the magnetic response of monolayer CrI${}_3$ to in-plane lattice deformations through a combination of isotropic Heisenberg spin Hamiltonians and first-principles calculations. Depending on the magnitude and orientation of the lattice strain exerted, we unveil a series of direction-dependent parallel-to-antiparallel spins crossovers, which yield the emergence of ferromagnetic, Néel antiferromagnetic, zigzag and stripy antiferromagnetic ground states. Additionally, we identify a critical point in the magnetic phase diagram whereby the exchange couplings vanish and the magnetism is quenched. Our work establishes guidelines for extensively tailoring the spin interactions in monolayer CrI${}_3$ via strain engineering, and further expands the magnetically ordered phases which can be hosted in a two-dimensional crystal.

References in corpus (7)

• Electric Field Effect in Atomically Thin Carbon Films
• The electronic properties of graphene
• Two Dimensional Atomic Crystals
• Magnetic 2D materials and heterostructures
• Probing magnetism in 2D materials at the nanoscale with single spin microscopy
• Strain-tunable magnetic and electronic properties of monolayer CrI3
• Atomic-scale defects in the two-dimensional ferromagnet CrI${}_3$ from first principles

Cited by in corpus (18)

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• Exotic Magnetic and Electronic Properties of Layered CrI3 Single Crystals Under High Pressure
• Control of magnetic states and spin interactions in bilayer CrCl${}_3$ with strain and electric fields: an ab initio study
• Manipulation of magnetic topological textures via perpendicular strain and polarization in van der Waals magnetoelectric heterostructure
• Magnetism and stability of all primitive stacking patterns in bilayer chromium trihalides
• Enhanced Curie temperature and skyrmion stability in room temperature ferromagnetic semiconductor CrISe monolayer
• Uniaxial pressure effects in the two-dimensional van-der-Waals ferromagnet CrI${}_3$
• On-site and inter-site Hubbard corrections in magnetic monolayers: The case of FePS${}_3$ and CrI${}_3$
• Strain Engineering of Magnetoresistance and Magnetic Anisotropy in CrSBr
• Monolayer C${}_{60}$ networks: A first-principles perspective
• Magnetoelectric imprint of skyrmions in van der Waals bilayers
• Electronic excitations and spin interactions in chromium trihalides from embedded many-body wavefunctions
• Magnetoelectric torque in polar magnetic bilayers
• Tailored Vapor Deposition Unlocks Large-Grain, Wafer-Scale Epitaxial Growth of 2D Magnetic CrCl3
• Spin-orbit coupling controlled two-dimensional magnetism in chromium trihalides