Tuning the robust magnetic properties in MPS3 (M = Mn, Fe, and Ni) by proximity-induced Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions

Abstract

We have demonstrated the possibility to control the otherwise robust magnetic properties of transition-metal phosphorus trisulfides (Mn/Fe/NiPS3) in their heterostructures with Weyl semimetallic MoTe2 which can be attributed to the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interactions at the interface of the two materials. While the DM interaction is known to scale with the strength of the spin-orbit coupling (SOC), we demonstrate using experiments on heterostructures with a variety of substrates (underlayers) hosting variable SOC and electronic density of states (DOS) that the effect of DM interaction strongly varies with the electronic DOS of the SOC-hosting layer as well as the spin orientation and degree of anisotropy associated with the magnetic layer.