Probing substrate effect on the magnetic properties of epitaxial 2D ferrimagnetic van der Waals heterostructures

Thanks to the progress in 2D materials technology, van der Waals (vdW) materials exhibiting intriguing long-range magnetic order can be synthesized by epitaxial methods down to the monolayer. Substrate choice is crucial as it influences 2D magnetic order of the layer, making it difficult or helpful the achievement of desired properties. Our preliminary XAS/XMCD studies on epitaxial chromium trichloride, CrCl3, monolayers (MLs) grown by MBE on Au(111) showed that these MLs are intrinsically ferromagnetic at low temperature, however no magnetic crystalline anisotropy was observed. We propose to perform in situ XMCD measurements of CrCl3 MLs grown on single-layer graphene, which in turn is grown on either magnetic or non-magnetic substrates. We aim to prove the ability of the substrate in tuning the magnetic properties of vdW magnetic materials through proximity-induced phenomena.