Observation of Standing Spin Waves in a van der Waals Magnetic Material

Spin waves are studied for data storage, communication, and logic circuits in the field of spintronics based on their potential to substitute electrons. The recent discovery of magnetism in 2D systems such as monolayer CrI₃ and Cr₂ Ge₂ Te₆ has led to a renewed interest in such applications of magnetism in the 2D limit. Here, direct evidence of standing spin waves is presented along with the uniform precessional resonance modes in the van der Waals magnetic material, CrCl₃ . This is the first direct observation of standing spin-wave modes, set up along a thickness of 20 mm, in a van der Waals material. Standing spin waves are detected in the vicinity of both branches, optical and acoustic, of the antiferromagnetic resonance. Magnon-magnon coupling and softening of resonance modes with temperature enable extraction of interlayer exchange field as a function of temperature.