Antiferromagnetic Order in the Rare Earth Halide Perovskites CsEuBr$_3$ and CsEuCl$_3$

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of antiferromagnetic order in bulk CsEuBr₃ and CsEuCl₃, revealing their potential for spintronic applications and expanding the functional versatility of halide perovskites.

Contribution

It provides experimental evidence of antiferromagnetic ordering in bulk CsEuBr₃ and CsEuCl₃, and supports the potential use of CsEuCl₃ as a switchable magnetic material through DFT calculations.

Findings

CsEuBr₃ orders antiferromagnetically at 2.0 K

CsEuCl₃ orders antiferromagnetically at 1.0 K

CsEuCl₃ can be used as a switchable magnetic material

Abstract

Bulk CsEuBr$_3$ and CsEuCl$_3$ are experimentally shown to be magnetic semiconductors that order antiferromagnetically at Neel temperatures of 2.0 K and 1.0 K respectively. Given that nanoparticles and thin films of CsEuCl$_3$ have been reported to order ferromagnetically at a similar temperature, our observation of antiferromagnetic ordering in CsEuBr$_3$ and CsEuCl$_3$ expands the possible applications of halide perovskites to now include spintronic devices where both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic devices can be fabricated from a single material. The conclusion that CsEuCl$_3$ can be used as a switchable magnetic material is also supported by our density-functional theory calculations.