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Anisotropic magnons in the layered honeycomb ferromagnet CrSiTe3

T. J. Williams*

D. L. Abernathy and M. D. Lumsden

J.-Q. Yan and A. D. Christianson

  • *Contact author: travis.williams@stfc.ac.uk
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Phys. Rev. B 114, 134422 – Published 17 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/c7bd-ghcb

Abstract

Recent experimental and theoretical studies have suggested a possible Dirac magnon gap in the two-dimensional ferromagnetic semiconductor CrSiTe3. Detailed neutron scattering measurements were performed to shed light on the existence of the magnon gap, and suggest that the gap is very small or nonexistent, with previous measurements being complicated by experimental factors. During these measurements, it was found that the out-of-plane couplings could explain the usual property of the increase in the magnetic transition temperature when CrSiTe3 is exfoliated to monolayers. Furthermore, the material was shown to have anisotropic magnons along the out-of-plane direction, through the proposed Dirac point. We speculate that this is due to an exchange anisotropy, though Kitaev-like interactions alone cannot explain the spectra.

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Phys. Rev. B 114, 134422– Published 17 September, 2026
  • Received 23 February 2026
  • Revised 28 July 2026
  • Accepted 17 August 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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