Complete mapping of magnetic anisotropy for prototype Ising van der Waals FePS3

Abstract

Several Ising-type magnetic van der Waals (vdW) materials exhibit stable magnetic ground states. Despite these clear experimental demonstrations, a complete theoretical and microscopic understanding of their magnetic anisotropy is still lacking. In particular, the validity limit of identifying their one-dimensional Ising nature has remained uninvestigated in a quantitative way. Here we performed the complete mapping of magnetic anisotropy for a prototypical Ising vdW magnet FePS3 for the first time. Combining torque magnetometry measurements with their magnetostatic model analysis and the relativistic density functional total energy calculations, we successfully constructed the three-dimensional mappings of the magnetic anisotropy in terms of magnetic torque and energy. The results not only quantitatively confirm that the easy axis is perpendicular to the ab plane, but also reveal the anisotropies within the ab, ac, and bc planes. Our approach can be applied to the detailed quantitative study of magnetism in vdW materials.