Bulk-like Magnetic Moment of Epitaxial Two-dimensional Superlattices

Over the past four years, the magnetism of 2D magnets has been extensively studied by the full arsenal of probing techniques. 2D magnets can be incorporated to form heterostructures with clean and sharp interfaces, which gives rise to exotic phenomena as a result of the interfacial proximity effect. Here we report a detailed study of the spin (ms) and orbital (ml) moments of an epitaxial (CrSb/Fe3GeTe2)6 superlattice. The synchrotron-radiation based x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) technique was performed to probe the microscopic magnetic properties of the superlattices in an elemental resolved manner. We unambiguously obtained a bulk-like moment of Fe3GeTe2 i.e., ms = 1.58 ± 0.2 μB/Fe and ml = 0.22 ± 0.02 μB/Fe. Future works to explore the tuning of the spin polarized band structure of 2D ferromagnetic superlattices will be of great interest and can have strong implications for both fundamental physics and the emerging spintronics technology.