Chromium trihalides (CrI3, CrBr3 and CrCl3) form a prominent family of isostructural insulating layered materials in which ferromagnetic order has been observed down to the monolayer. Here we provide a comprehensive computational study of magneto-optical properties that are used as probes for the monolayer ferromagnetic order: magnetic circular dichroism and magneto-optic Kerr effect. Using a combination of density functional and Bethe-Salpeter theories, we calculate both the optical absorption and the magneto-optical Kerr angle spectra, including both excitonic effects and spinorial wave functions. We compare the magneto-optical response of the chromium trihalides series and we find that its strength is governed by the spin-orbit coupling of the ligand atoms (I, Br, Cl).
@article{arxiv.1912.01888,
title = {Magneto-optical response of chromium trihalide monolayers: chemical trends},
author = {A. Molina-Sánchez and G. Catarina and D. Sangalli and J. Fernández-Rossier},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1912.01888},
year = {2021}
}