Abstract
The two-dimensional material Cr2Ge2Te6 is a member of the class of insulating van der Waals (vdW) magnets. Here, using high resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy in a detailed temperature dependence study, we identify a clear response of the electronic structure to a dimensional crossover in the form of two distinct temperature scales marking onsets of modifications in the electronic structure. Specifically, we observe Te p-orbital-dominated bands to undergo changes at the Curie transition temperature TC while the Cr d-orbital-dominated bands begin evolving at a higher temperature scale. Combined with neutron scattering, density functional theory calculations, and Monte Carlo simulations, we find that the electronic system can be consistently understood to respond sequentially to the distinct temperatures at which in-plane and out-of-plane spin correlations exceed a characteristic length scale. Our findings reveal the sensitivity of the orbital-selective electronic structure for probing the dynamical evolution of local moment correlations in vdW insulating magnets.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 045416 |
| Journal | Physical Review B |
| Volume | 109 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 15 2024 |
Funding
This research used resources of the Advanced Light Source, and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, both U.S. Department Of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facilities under Grants No. DE-AC02-05CH11231 and No. AC02-76SF00515, respectively. ARPES work at Rice is supported by DOE Grant No. DE-SC0021421, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation's EPiQS Initiative through Grant No. GBMF9470, and the Robert A. Welch Foundation Grant No. C-2175 (M.Y.). The neutron scattering and single crystal synthesis work at Rice was supported by NSF Grant No. DMR-2100741 and by the Robert A. Welch Foundation under Grant No. C-1839, respectively (P.D.). Work at University of California, Berkeley, is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences (BES), Materials Sciences and Engineering Division under Grant No. DE-AC02-05-CH11231 (Quantum Materials Program No. KC2202). Work at Los Alamos was carried out under the auspices of the DOE National Nuclear Security Administration under Grant No. 89233218CNA000001, and was supported by LANL LDRD Program and in part by Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, a DOE BES user facility, in partnership with the LANL Institutional Computing Program for computational resources. A portion of this research used resources at the High Flux Isotope Reactor and Spallation Neutron Source, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. M.W.B. was funded by the Robert A. Welch Foundation Grant No. C-1818. A.H.N. acknowledges the support of NSF Grant No. DMR-1917511.