Effect of hydrostatic pressure on ferromagnetism in two-dimensional CrI\(_3\)

• Published in: arXiv.org
• Main Authors: Mondal, Suchanda, Murugesan Kannan, Das, Moumita, Govindaraj, Linganan, Singha, Ratnadwip, Satpati, Biswarup, Arumugam, Sonachalam, Mandal, Prabhat
• Format: Paper
• Language: English
• Published: Ithaca Cornell University Library, arXiv.org 10.06.2019
• Subjects: Curie temperature; Ferromagnetism; Hydrostatic pressure; Hysteresis; Magnetic properties; Magnetism; Magnetization; Phase transitions; Pressure effects; Temperature
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1901.00706

We have investigated the magnetic properties of highly anisotropic layered ferromagnetic semiconductor CrI\(_3\) in presence of hydrostatic pressure (\(P\)). At ambient pressure, magnetization exhibits a clear anomaly below 212 K along with a thermal hysteresis over a wide temperature range (212-180 K), where a first-order structural transition is observed. CrI\(_3\) undergoes a second-order ferromagnetic-paramagnetic phase transition with Curie temperature \(T_C\)=60.4 K. With application of pressure, the transition becomes sharper and \(T_C\) is found to increase from 60.4 to 64.9 K as \(P\) increases from 0 to 1.0 GPa. \(T_C\) increases with \(P\) in a sublinear fashion. The thermal hysteresis in magnetization and the increase of \(T_C\) with pressure suggest that the spin and lattice degrees of freedom are coupled. The observed increase in \(T_C\) has been explained on the basis of change in inter-layer coupling and Cr-I-Cr bond angle with pressure.