Theory of magnetism in the van der Waals magnet CrI3

Abstract

We study the microscopical origin of anisotropic ferromagnetism in the van der Waals magnet CrI3. We conclude that the nearest neighbors exchange is well described by the Heisenberg-Kitaev-Gamma (HKGamma) model, and we also found a nonzero Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) on next nearest neighbors. Both Kitaev and DMI are known to generate a non-trivial topology of the magnons in the honeycomb lattice and have been used separately to describe the low energy regime of this material. We discuss that including one or the other leads to different signs of the Chern number. Furthermore, the topological gap at K-point seems to be mainly produced by DMI, despite it is one order of magnitude smaller than Kitaev. Finally, we show that by applying an external electric field perpendicular to the crystal plane, it is possible to induce DMI on nearest neighbors, and this could have consequences in non-collinear spin textures, such as domain walls and skyrmions.

Submitted to Physical Review B. 13 pages and 7 figures; Added references in section II.C

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Cited by in corpus (19)

• Topological magnon insulator spin excitations in the two-dimensional ferromagnet CrBr${}_3$
• Chiral Hinge Magnons in Second-Order Topological Magnon Insulators
• Control of magnetic states and spin interactions in bilayer CrCl${}_3$ with strain and electric fields: an ab initio study
• Tunable topological magnon-polaron states and anomalous Hall phenomena in two-dimensional ferromagnetic insulators
• Topological magnon gap engineering in van der Waals CrI${}_3$ ferromagnets
• Exchange interactions and spin dynamics in the layered honeycomb ferromagnet CrI${}_3$
• Evidence of Kitaev interaction in the monolayer 1T-CrTe${}_2$
• Superexchange and spin-orbit coupling in monolayer and bilayer chromium trihalides
• Delving into the anisotropic interlayer exchange in bilayer CrI${}_3$
• Designing layered 2D skyrmion lattices in moiré magnetic hetero-structures
• Intrinsic Spin Nernst Effect and Chiral Edge Modes in van der Waals Ferromagnetic Insulators: Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya vs. Kitaev Interactions
• Magnonics along the wall in Bimeron Chain Domain Walls
• Local spin-flip transitions induced by magnetic quantum impurities in two-dimensional magnets
• Magnetic domain wall dynamics under external electric field in bilayer CrI${}_3$
• Interlayer superexchange in bilayer chromium trihalides
• Angular-Dependent Thermal Hall Effect in a Honeycomb Magnet: Disentangling Kitaev and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interactions
• Quantized Toroidal Waves on Ferrotoroidal Magnets
• Symmetry-forbidden intraband transitions leading to ultralow Gilbert damping in van der Waals ferromagnets
• Computational Frameworks for Patterned Two-Dimensional Magnetism