Spectroscopic investigations of two-dimensional magnetic materials: transition metal trichlorides and transition metal phosphorus trichalcogenides

Date

Jun 8, 2023

Time

10:30 AM - 11:30 AM

Speaker

Tom Klaproth

Affiliation

IFW Dresden

Language

en

Main Topic

Materialien

Host

Description

In this thesis, the electronic properties of two-dimensional magnetic materials, transition metal trichlorides and transition metal phosphorus trichalcogenides, are studied by means of various spectroscopic techniques including photoelectron spectroscopy (PES), electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) and optical spectroscopy. The experiments on transition metal trichlorides mainly focus on manipulating the electronic structure of α−RuCl3 — a Kitaev spin liquid candidate material that, however, hosts an antiferromagnetic ground state at temperatures below 7 K. Such manipulation attempts include transition metal substitution by Cr, Ar+ sputtering of exfoliated flakes and the creation of an interface of α−RuCl3 with the organic semiconductor manganese (II) phtalocyanine (MnPc). To study the influence of transition metal substitution by Cr, the parent compounds α−RuCl3 and CrCl3, and the mixed compound Cr0.5Ru0.5Cl3 were studied by PES and EELS. The mixed compound preserves the +III oxidation state of Cr and Ru. The valence band resembles a superposition of the parent compounds and EELS reveals the appearance of a new optical absorption channel assigned to a Cr-Ru charge transfer. Ar+ sputtering decreases the chlorine content of exfoliated α−RuCl3 flakes. However, the properties of the sputtered film, namely the rate of chlorine loss and the work function, depend heavily on the initial flake thickness. The work function spans a remarkable range from Φ = 4.6 eV to 6.1 eV. The interface of α−RuCl3 with MnPc demonstrates the potential of α−RuCl3 as a strong electron acceptor. The work function and electron affinity of α−RuCl3 are characterized and the charge transfer from MnPc to α−RuCl3 is experimentally verified. In the second part of the thesis, two transition metal phosphorus trichalcogenide compounds are studied: FePS3 and NiPS3. Both are antiferromagnetic materials with FePS3 being of Ising-type and NiPS3 of anisotropic Heisenberg-type. Their electronic structure is spectroscopically investigated and the results are used as input for advanced density functional theory calculations (DFT+U) characterizing FePS3 as a Mott insulator and NiPS3 as a charge-transfer insulator. In the magnetically ordered state, magnetism and electronic properties are intertwined with the giant linear dichroism (LD) of FePS3 measured in optical transmission being the most impressive example. A microscopic understanding of the LD is provided with the DFT+U results giving confidence to the described model. For NiPS3, the origin of an extremely sharp magnetic exciton is studied bearing some analogy to the famous Zhang-Rice singlet state initially proposed for cuprates

Links

• Seminars at the IFW

Last modified: Jun 8, 2023, 7:38:51 AM