Ultrafast Critical Slowing of Spin Dynamics and Emergent Nonequilibrium Fano Interference in Fe3GeTe2

TL;DR

This study uses pump-probe reflectivity to explore coupled electronic, spin, and lattice dynamics in Fe3GeTe2, revealing critical slowing down, enhanced spin-lattice interactions near T_c, and emergent Fano interference effects.

Contribution

It uncovers the ultrafast critical spin dynamics and nonequilibrium Fano interference phenomena in Fe3GeTe2 across its magnetic transition.

Findings

Pronounced critical slowing down with an exponent of ~0.3 near T_c.

Emergent nonequilibrium Fano phonon asymmetry enhanced in the paramagnetic phase.

Enhanced magnetoelastic coupling evidenced by increased acoustic strain pulse amplitude near T_c.

Abstract

Fe$_3$GeTe$_2$ is a prototypical metallic van der Waals ferromagnet with itinerant magnetism and a highly tunable Curie temperature, yet how electronic excitations couple to spin and lattice degrees of freedom across its magnetic transition remains largely unexplored. Here, we use two-color pump-probe reflectivity to investigate the coupled electronic, spin, and lattice dynamics. The time-resolved reflectivity exhibits a tri-exponential relaxation, in which the intermediate component shows an anomaly near the Curie temperature due to enhanced interlayer spin-lattice interactions, while the slowest component displays pronounced critical slowing down with an exponent of ~ 0.3, revealing non-universal relaxation dynamics associated with intralayer spin correlations. Furthermore, we observe an emergent nonequilibrium A1g phonon Fano asymmetry that is suppressed in the ferromagnetic phase but anomalously enhanced in the paramagnetic regime, driven by thermally activated anharmonic decay pathways that bridge the kinematic gap to a hot electronic continuum. The pronounced enhancement of the acoustic strain pulse amplitude near T$_c$ further evidences robust magnetoelastic coupling. Overall, our results reveal how magnetic order governs the interplay among critical spin dynamics, electronic continuum excitations, and lattice response in metallic van der Waals ferromagnets