Multistep magnetization switching in orthogonally twisted ferromagnetic monolayers

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

Ultrafast laser-induced spin-lattice dynamics in the van der Waals antiferromagnet CoPS₃

CoPS₃ stands out in the family of the van der Waals antiferromagnets XPS₃ (X = Mn, Ni, Fe, and Co) due to the unquenched orbital momentum of the magnetic Co²⁺ ions, which is known to facilitate the coupling of spins to both electromagnetic waves and lattice vibrations. Here, using a time-resolved magneto...

Thermo-Magnetostrictive Effect for Driving Antiferromagnetic Two-Dimensional Material Resonators

Magnetostrictive coupling has recently attracted interest as a sensitive method for studying magnetism in two-dimensional (2D) materials by mechanical means. However, its application in high-frequency magnetic actuators and transducers requires rapid modulation of the magnetic order, which is difficult to achieve with external magnets,...

Highly Anisotropic Mechanical Response of the Van der Waals Magnet CrPS₄

Semiconducting van der Waals magnets exhibit a rich physical phenomenology with different collective excitations, as magnons or excitons, that can be coupled, thereby offering new opportunities for optoelectronic, spintronic, and magnonic devices. In contrast with the well-studied van der Waals magnets CrI₃ or Fe₃GeTe...

Nanomechanical absorption spectroscopy of 2D materials with femtowatt sensitivity

Nanomechanical spectroscopy (NMS) is a recently developed approach to determine optical absorption spectra of nanoscale materials via mechanical measurements. It is based on measuring changes in the resonance frequency of a membrane resonator vs. the photon energy of incoming light. This method is a direct measurement of absorption, which has...

Nanomechanical probing and strain tuning of the Curie temperature in suspended Cr₂Ge₂Te₆-based heterostructures

Two-dimensional magnetic materials with strong magnetostriction are attractive systems for realizing strain-tuning of the magnetization in spintronic and nanomagnetic devices. This requires an understanding of the magneto-mechanical coupling in these materials. In this work, we suspend thin Cr₂Ge₂Te₆ layers...

Study of charge density waves in suspended 2H-TaS₂ and 2H-TaSe₂ by nanomechanical resonance

The charge density wave (CDW) state in van der Waals systems shows interesting scaling phenomena as the number of layers can significantly affect the CDW transition temperature, T_CDW. However, it is often difficult to use conventional methods to study the phase transition in these systems due to their small size and sensitivity to...

Chemical Design and Magnetic Ordering in Thin Layers of 2D Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs)

Through rational chemical design, and thanks to the hybrid nature of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), it is possible to prepare molecule-based 2D magnetic materials stable at ambient conditions. Here, we illustrate the versatility of this approach by changing both the metallic nodes and the ligands in a family of layered MOFs that allows the...

Magnetic and electronic phase transitions probed by nanomechanical resonators

The reduced dimensionality of two-dimensional (2D) materials results in characteristic types of magnetically and electronically ordered phases. However, only few methods are available to study this order, in particular in ultrathin insulating antiferromagnets that couple weakly to magnetic and electronic probes. Here, we demonstrate that...

Sensing of the Molecular Spin in Spin-Crossover Nanoparticles with Micromechanical Resonators

In the past years, the use of highly sensitive silicon microelectromechanical cantilevers has been proposed as a tool to characterize the spin-crossover phenomenon by employing fast optical readout of the motion. In this work, Fe ^II -based spin-crossover nanoparticles of the well-known [Fe(Htrz) ₂ (trz)](BF ₄...

Ground-state spin blockade in a single-molecule junction

It is known that the quantum mechanical ground state of a nanoscale junction has a significant impact on its electrical transport properties. This becomes particularly important in transistors consisting of a single molecule. Because of strong electron-electron interactions and the possibility of accessing ground states with high spins, these...

Charge Mobility and Dynamics in Spin-Crossover Nanoparticles Studied by Time-Resolved Microwave Conductivity

We use the electrodeless time-resolved microwave conductivity (TRMC) technique to characterize spin-crossover (SCO) nanoparticles. We show that TRMC is a simple and accurate means for simultaneously assessing the magnetic state of SCO compounds and charge transport information on the nanometer length scale. In the low-spin state from liquid...

Enhanced superconductivity in atomically thin TaS 2

The ability to exfoliate layered materials down to the single layer limit has presented the opportunity to understand how a gradual reduction in dimensionality affects the properties of bulk materials. Here we use this top-down approach to address the problem of superconductivity in the two-dimensional limit. The transport properties of...

High-quality-factor tantalum oxide nanomechanical resonators by laser oxidation of TaSe2

Controlling the strain in two-dimensional (2D) materials is an interesting avenue to tailor the mechanical properties of nanoelectromechanical systems. Here, we demonstrate a technique to fabricate ultrathin tantalum oxide nanomechanical resonators with large stress by the laser oxidation of nano-drumhead resonators composed of tantalum...

VizBin: An application for reference-independent visualization and human-augmented binning of metagenomic data

Background: Metagenomics is limited in its ability to link distinct microbial populations to genetic potential due to a current lack of representative isolate genome sequences. Reference-independent approaches, which exploit for example inherent genomic signatures for the clustering of metagenomic fragments (binning), offer the prospect to...