Magnetic properties and materials articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Several recent works have demonstrated current based control of antiferromagnetic order, with the potential that such switching could be used for information processing and storage. Here, Haley et al demonstrate that in FexNbS2, this switching is non-local, with magnetic order changing due to an applied current at distances much larger than the spin diffusion length in the material.

    • Shannon C. Haley
    • , Eran Maniv
    •  & James G. Analytis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Experimental realizations of absolute enantioselection, without chiral catalysis or chiral ingredients, has been challenging. Here, the authors obtain enantioselectivity in mesoscale helical supramolecules consisting only of achiral molecules by exploiting chiral-induced spin selectivity (CISS) effect.

    • Hiroki Aizawa
    • , Takuro Sato
    •  & Hiroshi M. Yamamoto

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magnons are elementary quasiparticles describing collective excitations of magnetic materials, however more complex quasiparticles can arise from attractive interactions between magnons. Here the authors report several types of magnetic excitations in a spin-1 magnet FeI2 and uncover new magnon decay paths.

    • Xiaojian Bai
    • , Shang-Shun Zhang
    •  & Cristian D. Batista

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Kondo hybridization typically occurs in heavy-fermion systems containing f electrons, although recently it has been reported in d-electron systems. Kim et al. report spectroscopic evidence of the Kondo hybridization in FeTe and discuss it role in the mechanism of the magnetic order.

    • Younsik Kim
    • , Min-Seok Kim
    •  & Changyoung Kim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    When strain is applied to some magnetic materials, the magnetic properties and magnetization can change drastically. This coupling is referred to as magnetoelasticity, and while its history of study is long, it is still not a well-understood phenomenon. In this work, Kong et al. shed light on magnetoelasticity using a variety of experimental probes.

    • Deli Kong
    • , András Kovács
    •  & Rafal E. Dunin-Borkowski

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The isolation of graphene leads to a surge of interest in two dimensional materials, and recently, ferromagnetism has been observed in several two-dimensional materials. However, two-dimensional ferromagnetism remains rare. Here, Gong et al present an alternative approach to achieve two-dimensional ferromagnetism; combining antiferromagnetic FePS3 with non-magnetic WS2 they find a ferromagnetic state forms at the interface of these two materials.

    • Cheng Gong
    • , Peiyao Zhang
    •  & Xiang Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spin-pumping experimental technique where a DC or AC spin current is generated, and typically transferred to a heavy metal layer where it can be detected via electrical measurements. While well established in conventional materials, coherent spin-pumping in van der Waals magnetic materials is challenging due to the low damping and high-quality interface requirements. Here, Xu et al demonstrate coherent spin pumping in the van der Waals magnet Cr2Ge2Te6.

    • Hongjun Xu
    • , Ke Jia
    •  & Guoqiang Yu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Kosterlitz–Thouless–Halperin–Nelson–Young (KTHNY) theory describes the melting of an ordered two-dimensional phase to a disordered phase, via a quasi-ordered ‘hexatic’ phase. Magnetic skyrmions, as a phase of two-dimensional quasi-particles may be expected to exhibit a KTHNY melting process, however, observing such a phase transition is difficult. Herein, Meisenheimer et al study the formation of magnetic skyrmions in (Fe0.5Co0.5)5GeTe2, and, via physical confinement at device scale, succeed in obtaining an ordered skrymion phase.

    • Peter Meisenheimer
    • , Hongrui Zhang
    •  & Ramamoorthy Ramesh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magnetic skyrmions are topological spin textures, most notably occurring in magnetic materials. So far, the skyrmions that have been reported correspond to topological textures of magnetic dipole moments. Zhang et al show theoretically that quantum effects can lead to a distinct type of skyrmion that combines dipolar and quadrupolar moments, proposing a variety of materials, including magnets and quantum paramagnets, where such textures can be stabilized.

    • Hao Zhang
    • , Zhentao Wang
    •  & Cristian D. Batista

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Shastry-Sutherland lattice materials offer a rich variety of accessible magnetic phases however, only a few have been observed to have ferromagnetic dimers, and among those, high quality single crystals are rare. Here, Marshall et al uses neutron diffraction on single crystals of BaNd2ZnS5, and show the existence of 2Q-antiferromagnetic order composed of ferromagnetic dimers and field-induced partial disorder. ‘

    • Madalynn Marshall
    • , Brianna R. Billingsley
    •  & Huibo Cao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Transition metal oxides are a promising class of materials to engineer multiferroic properties for next-generation spintronic devices. Here, the authors demonstrate an emergent and robust ferromagnetic-insulating state in ferroelastic LaCoO3 epitaxial films by strain-defect-microstructure manipulated electronic and magnetic states.

    • Dong Li
    • , Hongguang Wang
    •  & Weiwei Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    EuIn2As2 is a candidate as an axion insulator, a material that can host axion-like quasi-particles, in direct analogy with the axion proposed in particle physics to resolve the so called “strong CP problem”. Here Soh et al., perform resonant elastic X-Ray scattering on EuIn2As2 and show that the magnetic order consists of commensurate chiral magnetic structures, satisfying the symmetry requirements for EuIn2As2 to be an axion insulator.’

    • Jian-Rui Soh
    • , Alessandro Bombardi
    •  & Andrew T. Boothroyd

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Artificial spin ices are composed of tiny magnets arranged in a lattice. Despite their simplicity, they exhibit rich dynamic magnetic behaviour. Here, Lendinez et al demonstrate that, like continuous magnetic thin films, artificial spin ices can exhibit non-linear magnon-magnon scattering which, in conjunction with their reconfigurability, offers great potential for tuneable magnon transport.

    • Sergi Lendinez
    • , Mojtaba T. Kaffash
    •  & M. Benjamin Jungfleisch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Phonons are the collective excitations of the lattice of a material, and can, in the case of chiral phonons, carry angular momentum, allowing for strong coupling to the magnetic properties of the material. Here, Cui, Bostrom and co-authors observe chiral magnon polarons, the hybridized quasiparticles of chiral phonons and magnons, in the van der Waals antiferromagnet FePSe3.

    • Jun Cui
    • , Emil Viñas Boström
    •  & Qi Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In magnetoelectric materials, the magnetization can be controlled by the application of an electric field, making it comparatively easy to switch magnetization, which is attractive for data storage and other proposed devices. Unfortunately, the effect in single-phase materials is typically fairly weak. Here Fogh et al. demonstrate a two orders of magnitude enhancement of the magnetoelectric coupling in LiNi0.8Fe0.2PO4 compared to the parent compounds.

    • Ellen Fogh
    • , Bastian Klemke
    •  & Rasmus Toft-Petersen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chromium tellurides are a particularly promising family of quasi-2D magnetic materials; towards the single van der Waals layer limit, they preserve magnetic ordering, some even above room temperature, and exhibit a variety of intrinsic topological properties. Here, Hang Chi, Yunbo Ou and co-authors demonstrate a strain tunable Berry curvature induced reversal of the anomalous Hall effect in Cr2Te3.

    • Hang Chi
    • , Yunbo Ou
    •  & Jagadeesh S. Moodera

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In a magneto-electric material, the magnetic and electric properties are coupled. This coupling allows the magnetic order to be controlled by electric stimuli, making magnetoelectric materials promising candidates for new data storage technologies. Here Gu et al demonstrate a magnetoelectric effect in a van der Waals antiferromagnetic CrOCl which persists down to monolayer, and using this realize a multi-state data storage device.

    • Pingfan Gu
    • , Cong Wang
    •  & Yu Ye

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Long-range magnetic ordering of two-dimensional crystals can be sensitive to interlayer coupling, enabling the effective control of interlayer magnetism. Here, the authors report the pressure-controlled interlayer magnetic coupling of chromiumpyrazine coordinated magnets.

    • Yulong Huang
    • , Arjun K. Pathak
    •  & Shenqiang Ren

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Trivalent lanthanides are typically described using an ionic picture that leads to localized magnetic moments. Here authors show that the “textbook” description of lanthanides fails for Pr4+ ions where the hierarchy of single-ion energy scales can be tailored to explore correlated phenomena in quantum materials.

    • Arun Ramanathan
    • , Jensen Kaplan
    •  & Henry S. La Pierre

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It has been debated whether the single-band Hubbard model describes the physics of the cuprates. Mai et al. numerically study the spin and charge correlations in the electron-doped model and conclude that, in contrast to the hole-doped one, it captures the corresponding side of the cuprate phase diagram.

    • Peizhi Mai
    • , Nathan S. Nichols
    •  & Steven Johnston

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electrically switching perpendicular magnetized ferromagnets using spin-orbit torques without assisting magnetic fields is a major goal for spintronics. Recently, several works have proposed using out-of-plane spin polarized currents to achieve this, but these rely on antiferromagnetic metals with low Neel temperatures. Here, Wang et al show that such out-of-plane spin polarization driven switching can be achieved using the interface of an antiferromagnetic insulator and a heavy metal.

    • Mengxi Wang
    • , Jun Zhou
    •  & Yong Jiang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Graphite consists of individual layers of graphene stacked vertically and held together via van der Waals forces. Here, Markus et al studied the spin relaxation in graphite, and find a giant anisotropy between spin-relaxation time in graphite, with magnetic field aligned perpendicular to the graphene planes exhibiting a factor of 10 longer spin-relaxation time.

    • B. G. Márkus
    • , M. Gmitra
    •  & F. Simon

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magnonics aims to use the collective excitations of spins in magnetic materials, magnons, for information transfer and processing. In this manuscript, Elnaggar et al. study magnon excitations in hematite using resonant inelastic X-ray scattering, observing higher-order magnons.

    • Hebatalla Elnaggar
    • , Abhishek Nag
    •  & Frank de Groot

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Time-reversal symmetry breaking by an external magnetic field can lead to a novel quantum state called the gapless superconducting state. Here, the authors use magneto-terahertz spectroscopy to study the gapless superconductivity of thin niobium films.

    • Ji Eun Lee
    • , Joonyoung Choi
    •  & Jae Hoon Kim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    TbMn6Sn6 exhibits a spin-reorientation transition above 310K, which could allow for switching of topological magnetic properties. Here, Riberolles et al use inelastic neutron scattering techniques to study this spin reorientation transition showing that it is driven by the orbital dynamics of the Tb ions, which can be described by a quantum two-state orbital model. On short timescales, the material behaves as a classical magnetic binary alloy, while on longer timescales, this averages out to a homogenous system with some average anisotropy.

    • S. X. M. Riberolles
    • , Tyler J. Slade
    •  & R. J. McQueeney

  • Article
    | Open Access

    van der Waals magnetic materials, which retain magnetism down to a single two-dimensional layer of atoms, have great technological potential for spin-based information processing, however, typical approaches to measure their spin dynamics are often hampered by the small number of spins in a single atomic layer compared to three dimensional materials. Here, Zollitsch et al present a methodology for the detection of spin dynamics in van der Waals magnets via photon-magnon coupling between it and a superconducting resonator, with potential to resolve spin dynamics down to a single monolayer.

    • Christoph W. Zollitsch
    • , Safe Khan
    •  & Hidekazu Kurebayashi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Artificial spin ices consist of small magnets arranged in a lattice. Their simplicity belies their rich behaviour; they allowed for the investigation of effective magnetic monopoles, and more recently have been suggested as promising platforms for neuromorphic computing. For this latter function, efficient readout of the artificial spin ice state is critical. In this manuscript, Hu et al succeed in distinguishing artificial spin ice states using simple transport measurements.

    • Wenjie Hu
    • , Zefeng Zhang
    •  & Jian Shen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The anisotropic electrical and optical response of materials has allowed for the development of variety of sensors, memories and other interesting devices. Here, Qi et al turn their attention to the van der Waals antiferromagnetic insulator CrPS4, and demonstrate a very large, electrically tunable anisotropy in magnon transport, and present a multibit read-only memory based on this anisotropy.

    • Shaomian Qi
    • , Di Chen
    •  & Jian-Hao Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Applications of van der Waals magnetic systems are typically hampered by the low Curie temperature of van der Waals magnets. Here, Wang et al use molecular beam epitaxy to grow large films of Fe4GeTe2 with Curie temperatures over 500 K, and the film’s magnetic anisotropy can be tuned arbitrarily by controlling stoichiometry.

    • Hangtian Wang
    • , Haichang Lu
    •  & Tianxiao Nie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The isolation of graphene lead to a surge of interest in van der Waals materials, with more recent isolation of individual layers of transition metal chalcogenides, and various magnetic van der Waals materials. For many of these materials, controlled growth of one-dimensional systems, nanoribbons for example, have been demonstrated. Here, Lu et al add to this CrCl3, a van der Waals magnetic material, growing one-dimensional wires and observing their magnetic ordering via scanning tunneling microscopy.

    • Shuangzan Lu
    • , Deping Guo
    •  & Chendong Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There has been substantial interest in using magnons for information processing. At low magnetic fields, many magnets can form complex domain structures. Here, Li et al study how magnons propagate in a ferrimagnet with domains, finding that the passage of magnons is remarkably insensitive to this complex domain landscape.

    • Ruofan Li
    • , Lauren J. Riddiford
    •  & Tianxiang Nan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Metal free’ materials offer a cheap and chemical benign platform for magnetism, however, the typical source of magnetism are unpaired electrons of a metal, thus designing ‘metal free’ magnetic materials represents a significant challenge. Here, Du et al present a strategy for enhancing the magnetism in carbon nitride using boron bridges.

    • Lina Du
    • , Bo Gao
    •  & Qun Xu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A Mott transition is a metal-insulator transition driven by electronic correlations, and the Mott insulating state is typically associated with unconventional electronic phases. Here the authors report a pressure-induced transition from a Mott insulator to a ferromagnetic Weyl metal in an iron oxychalcogenide.

    • Ye Yang
    • , Fanghang Yu
    •  & Xianhui Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Increasing the speed of magnetization switching is an obvious pathway to improve spintronic device performance. However, very fast magnetization switching is accompanied by instabilities. Here, Gidding et al study these instabilities using optical pumping, and show that instability generated spin-waves can achieve a high enough amplitude to drive switching of the magnetization, with a distinctive coherent pattern.

    • M. Gidding
    • , T. Janssen
    •  & A. Kirilyuk

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Some materials can display magnetic order despite having spin-singlet ground state on individual magnetic sites. This arises due to exchange interactions mixing excited crystal electric field states. Here, Gao et al study and example of such a system, Ni2Mo3O8, and find that crystal electric field states in both the paramagnetic and antiferromagnetic states exhibit dispersive excitations.

    • Bin Gao
    • , Tong Chen
    •  & Pengcheng Dai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Mott insulator κ-(BEDT-TTF)2Cu2(CN)3 has been a strong candidate for a gapless quantum spin liquid, but recent experiments suggested a spin-gapped phase below 6 K. Pustogow et al. study the entropy of this phase by driving the system through the metal-insulator transition with a strain engineering approach.

    • A. Pustogow
    • , Y. Kawasugi
    •  & N. Tajima

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Antiferromagnets have an inbuilt resilience to external magnetic fields and intrinsically fast dynamics, properties that have garnered interest in the hope that they could be used for antiferromagnet memories. Central to this are Neel spin-orbit torques, which can switch the individual sublattices of the antiferromagnet. Here, Reimers et al demonstrate complete and reversible current induced switching of the Neel vector in Mn2Au.

    • S. Reimers
    • , Y. Lytvynenko
    •  & M. Jourdan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recently there has been interest in exploring the coupling between magnons for use in information processing, however, this is hampered by the fact that such coupling is forbidden due to the different parity of the acoustic and optical magnons. Here, Comstock et al show that the interlayer Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya-Interaction in a layered hybrid antiferromagnet can allow for strong coupling between the acoustic and optical magnons, offering a pathway for magnon coherent information processing.

    • Andrew H. Comstock
    • , Chung-Tao Chou
    •  & Dali Sun

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Antiferromagnets are promising candidates to build terahertz spintronic devices. However, manipulating and detecting their terahertz spin dynamics remains key challenges. Here, Rongione et al. demonstrate both broadband and narrowband terahertz emission from an antiferromagnet/heavy metal heterostructure using spin-phonon interactions.

    • E. Rongione
    • , O. Gueckstock
    •  & R. Lebrun

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spin wave based computing has great promise, offering advantage of low power consumption, aided by the absence of currents and therefore Joule heating. However, the absence of a method of directly storing the information contained in the spin waves represents a significant hurdle. Here, Baumgaertl and Grundler demonstrate the reversal of a nanomagnet via spin waves with small spin wave power requirements.

    • Korbinian Baumgaertl
    •  & Dirk Grundler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Berry curvature sits at the heart of both the anomalous hall effect and topological hall effect, with the former arising from a momentum space berry curvature, while the latter arises from a real space berry curvature. Here, Li et al present an intriguing example of a combined real and reciprocal space berry curvature in the kagome material Mn3Sn, resulting in a large field linear anomalous Hall effect.

    • Xiaokang Li
    • , Jahyun Koo
    •  & Binghai Yan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding phonon-induced relaxation in molecular qubits is a crucial step in realizing their application potential. Garlatti at al. use a combination of inelastic X-ray scattering and density functional theory to investigate the role of low-energy phonons on spin relaxation of a prototypical molecular qubit.

    • E. Garlatti
    • , A. Albino
    •  & S. Carretta

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