"Pressure-Enhanced Orbital Magnetism in VI₃ - A Study of an Unprecedented Increase in Curie Temperature"

Magnetocrystalline anisotropy, a prerequisite for stable magnetism in van der Waals (vdW) systems down to the single layer limit, originates in spin-orbit coupling (SOC). The vdW ferromagnet VI3 represents an example of a strong orbital moment (OM) on the V3+ site. The unbalanced V-I hybridization acts as a trigonal ligand field, which leads to the further splitting of the originally degenerated t2g states occupied by two electrons. Thus we observed a large unquenched OM, detected by the XMCD experiment.
We propose a further XMCD study to investigate the evolution of ferromagnetism and OM in VI3 in high external pressure. The goal is to clarify the microscopic mechanisms causing the dramatic increase of the Curie temperature with simultaneously decreasing saturated magnetic moment and the interconnected changes in structural and magnetic properties at high hydrostatic pressure.