The manipulation of two-dimensional (2D) magnetic order is of significant importance to facilitate future 2D magnets for low-power and high-speed spintronic devices. Van der Waals stacking engineering makes promises for controllable magnetism via interlayer magnetic coupling. However, directly examining the stacking order changes accompanying magnetic order transitions at the atomic scale and preparing device-ready 2D magnets with controllable magnetic orders remain elusive. Here, we demonstrate effective control of interlayer stacking in exfoliated CrBr3 via thermally assisted strain engineering. The stable interlayer ferromagnetic (FM), antiferromagnetic (AFM), and FM-AFM coexistent ground states confirmed by the magnetic circular dichroism measurements are realized. Combined with the first-principles calculations, the atomically-resolved imaging technique reveals the correlation between magnetic order and interlay stacking order in the CrBr3 flakes unambiguously. A tunable exchange bias effect is obtained in the mixed phase of FM and AFM states. This work will introduce new magnetic properties by controlling the stacking order, and sequence of 2D magnets, providing ample opportunities for their application in spintronic devices.
@article{arxiv.2308.11219,
title = {Controlling the 2D magnetism of CrBr$_3$ by van der Waals stacking engineering},
author = {Shiqi Yang and Xiaolong Xu and Bo Han and Pingfan Gu and Roger Guzman and Yiwen Song and Zhongchong Lin and Peng Gao and Wu Zhou and Jinbo Yang and Zuxin Chen and Yu Ye},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2308.11219},
year = {2023}
}