Bulk properties of the van der Waals hard ferromagnet VI3
Authors
Son, S
Lee, N
Kim, J
Kim, TY
Hamidov, H
Cho, H
Brown, PAC
Kim, JH
Park, CH
Khomskii, DI
Park, JG
Publication Date
2019-01-07Journal Title
Physical Review B: Condensed Matter and Materials Physics
ISSN
1098-0121
Publisher
American Physical Society
Volume
99
Issue
4
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Son, S., Coak, M., Lee, N., Kim, J., Kim, T., Hamidov, H., Cho, H., et al. (2019). Bulk properties of the van der Waals hard ferromagnet VI3. Physical Review B: Condensed Matter and Materials Physics, 99 (4)https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.99.041402
Abstract
We present comprehensive measurements of the structural, magnetic, and electronic properties of layered van der Waals ferromagnet VI3 down to low temperatures. Despite belonging to a well-studied family of transition-metal trihalides, this material has received very little attention. We outline, from high-resolution powder x-ray diffraction measurements, a corrected room-temperature crystal structure to that previously proposed and uncover a structural transition at 79 K, also seen in the heat capacity. Magnetization measurements confirm VI3 to be a hard ferromagnet (9.1 kOe coercive field at 2 K) with a high degree of anisotropy, and the pressure dependence of the magnetic properties provide evidence for the two-dimensional nature of the magnetic order. Optical and electrical transport measurements show this material to be an insulator with an optical band gap of 0.67 eV - the previous theoretical predictions of d-band metallicity then lead us to believe VI3 to be a correlated Mott insulator. Our latest band-structure calculations support this picture and show good agreement with the experimental data. We suggest VI3 to host great potential in the thriving field of low-dimensional magnetism and functional materials, together with opportunities to study and make use of low-dimensional Mott physics.
Sponsorship
EPSRC (EP/M000524/1)
Embargo Lift Date
2100-01-01
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.99.041402
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/288531
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