Critical behavior of two-dimensional intrinsically ferromagnetic semiconductor CrI3

CrI3, which belongs to a rare category of two-dimensional (2D) ferromagnetic semiconductors, is of great interest for spintronic device applications. Unlike CrCl3 whose magnetism presents a 2D-Heisenberg behavior, CrI3 exhibits a larger van der Waals gap, smaller cleavage energy, and stronger magnetic anisotropy which could lead to a 3D magnetic characteristic. Hence, we investigate the critical behavior of CrI3 in the vicinity of magnetic transition. We use the modified Arrott plot and Kouvel-Fisher method and conduct critical isotherm analysis to estimate the critical exponents near the ferromagnetic phase transition. This shows that the magnetism of CrI3 follows the crossover behavior of a 3D-Ising behavior with mean field type interactions where the critical exponents beta, gamma, and delta are 0.323 +/- 0.006, 0.835 +/- 0.005, and 3.585 +/- 0.006, respectively, at the Curie temperature of 64 K. We propose that the crossover behavior can be attributed to the strong uniaxial anisotropy and inevitable interlayer coupling. Our experiment demonstrates the applicability of crossover behavior to a 2D ferromagnetic semiconductor. Published by AIP Publishing.