Crystallographic and magnetic properties of van der Waals layered FePS3 crystal**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11404169, 51602159, and 11704196), the Scientific Research Foundation of Nanjing University of Posts & Telecommunications, China (Grant Nos. NY217043 and NY218021), and the Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province, China (Grant Nos. KYCX17_0754 and SJCX18_0287).

Abstract

The crystallographic and magnetic properties are presented for van der Waals antiferromagnetic FePS3. High-quality single crystals of millimeter size have been successfully synthesized through the chemical vapor transport method. The layered structure and cleavability of the compound are apparent, which are beneficial for a potential exploration of the interesting low dimensional magnetism, as well as for incorporation of FePS3 into van der Waals heterostructures. For the sake of completeness, we have measured both direct current (dc) and alternating current (ac) magnetic susceptibility. The paramagnetic to antiferromagnetic transition occurs at approximately . The effective moment is larger than the spin-only effective moment, suggesting that an orbital contribution to the total angular momentum of the Fe2+ could be present. The ac susceptibility is independent of frequency, which means that the spin freezing effect is excluded. Strong anisotropy of out-of-plane and in-plane susceptibility has been shown, demonstrating the Ising-type magnetic order in FePS3 system.