Twisting 2D van der Waals magnets allows the formation and control of different spin-textures, as skyrmions or magnetic domains. Beyond the rotation angle, different spin reversal processes can be engineered by increasing the number of magnetic layers forming the twisted van der Waals heterostructure. Here, pristine monolayers and bilayers of the A-type antiferromagnet CrSBr are considered as building blocks. By rotating 90 degrees these units, symmetric (monolayer/monolayer and bilayer/bilayer) and asymmetric (monolayer/bilayer) heterostructures are fabricated. The magneto-transport properties reveal the appearance of magnetic hysteresis, which is highly dependent upon the magnitude and direction of the applied magnetic field and is determined not only by the twist-angle but also by the number of layers forming the stack. This high tunability allows switching between volatile and non-volatile magnetic memory at zero-field and controlling the appearance of abrupt magnetic reversal processes at either negative or positive field values on demand. The phenomenology is rationalized based on the different spin-switching processes occurring in the layers, as supported by micromagnetic simulations. The results highlight the combination between twist-angle and number of layers as key elements for engineering spin-switching reversals in twisted magnets, of interest toward the miniaturization of spintronic devices and realizing novel spin textures.@en

Heat transport in two dimensions is fundamentally different from that in three dimensions. As a consequence, the thermal properties of 2D materials are of great interest, from both scientific and application points of view. However, few techniques are available for the accurate determination of these properties in ultrathin suspended membranes. Here, we present an optomechanical methodology for extracting the thermal expansion coefficient, specific heat, and thermal conductivity of ultrathin membranes made of 2H-TaS₂, FePS₃, polycrystalline silicon, MoS₂, and WSe₂. The obtained thermal properties are in good agreement with the values reported in the literature for the same materials. Our work provides an optomechanical method for determining the thermal properties of ultrathin suspended membranes, which are difficult to measure otherwise. It provides a route toward improving our understanding of heat transport in the 2D limit and facilitates engineering of 2D structures with a dedicated thermal performance.

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The high susceptibility of ultrathin two-dimensional (2D) material resonators to force and temperature makes them ideal systems for sensing applications and exploring thermomechanical coupling. Although the dynamics of these systems at high stress has been thoroughly investigated, their behavior near the buckling transition has received less attention. Here, we demonstrate that the force sensitivity and frequency tunability of 2D material resonators are significantly enhanced near the buckling bifurcation. This bifurcation is triggered by compressive displacement that we induce via thermal expansion of the devices, while measuring their dynamics via an optomechanical technique. We understand the frequency tuning of the devices through a mechanical buckling model, which allows to extract the central deflection and boundary compressive displacement of the membrane. Surprisingly, we obtain a remarkable enhancement of up to 14× the vibration amplitude attributed to a very low stiffness of the membrane at the buckling transition, as well as a high frequency tunability by temperature of more than 4.02$\%$ K−1. The presented results provide insights into the effects of buckling on the dynamics of free-standing 2D materials and thereby open up opportunities for the realization of 2D resonant sensors with buckling-enhanced sensitivity.@en

The layered metamagnet CrSBr offers a rich interplay between magnetic, optical, and electrical properties that can be extended down to the two-dimensional (2D) limit. Despite the extensive research regarding the long-range magnetic order in magnetic van der Waals materials, short-range correlations have been loosely investigated. By using small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) the formation of short-range magnetic regions in CrSBr with correlation lengths that increase upon cooling up to ≈3 nm at the antiferromagnetic ordering temperature (T _N ≈ 140 K) is shown. Interestingly, these ferromagnetic correlations start developing below 200 K, i.e., well above T _N. Below T _N, these correlations rapidly decrease and are negligible at low-temperatures. The experimental results are well-reproduced by an effective spin Hamiltonian, which pinpoints that the short-range correlations in CrSBr are intrinsic to the monolayer limit, and discard the appearance of any frustrated phase in CrSBr at low-temperatures within the experimental window between 2 and 200 nm. Overall, the obtained results are compatible with a spin freezing scenario of the magnetic fluctuations in CrSBr and highlight SANS as a powerful technique for characterizing the rich physical phenomenology beyond the long-range order paradigm offered by van der Waals magnets.

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The authors present magnetotransport measurements to demonstrate multistep magnetization switching in orthogonally twisted CrSBr ferromagnetic monolayers.

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Magnetic imaging using nitrogen-vacancy (NV) spins in diamonds is a powerful technique for acquiring quantitative information about sub-micron scale magnetic order. A major challenge for its application in the research on two-dimensional (2D) magnets is the positioning of the NV centers at a well-defined, nanoscale distance to the target material required for detecting the small magnetic fields generated by magnetic monolayers. Here, we develop a diamond “dry-transfer” technique akin to the state-of-the-art 2D-materials assembly methods and use it to place a diamond micro-membrane in direct contact with the 2D interlayer antiferromagnet CrSBr. We harness the resulting NV-sample proximity to spatially resolve the magnetic stray fields generated by the CrSBr, present only where the CrSBr thickness changes by an odd number of layers. From the magnetic stray field of a single uncompensated ferromagnetic layer in the CrSBr, we extract a monolayer magnetization of M _CSB = 0.46(2) T, without the need for exfoliation of monolayer crystals or applying large external magnetic fields. The ability to deterministically place NV-ensemble sensors into contact with target materials and detect ferromagnetic monolayer magnetizations paves the way for quantitative analysis of a wide range of 2D magnets assembled on arbitrary target substrates.

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