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Spin reorientations in structurally metastable, disordered, and hexagonal Cr7Te8

K. Guratinder1,*,†, T. G. Romig2,*, H. C. Mandujano2, C. Stock1, and E. E. Rodriguez2,3,‡

  • *These author's contributed equally to this work.
  • †Contact author: gkaur2@ed.ac.uk
  • ‡Contact author: efrain@umd.edu
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Phys. Rev. B 113, 064417 – Published 11 February, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/nfhl-8fkn

Abstract

Vapor deposited two-dimensional Cr7Te8 displays unusual temperature dependent Hall effect properties, including a room-temperature anomalous Hall effect, sign reversals of the Hall resistivity on cooling, and a peak in the Hall resistivity at low temperatures. The two-dimensional Cr7Te8 heterostructures that form the basis of these measurements are hexagonal in structure. We study the magnetic and structural properties of bulk Cr7Te8 synthesized by quenching from 1000∘C with the goal of relating the magnetic, structural, and electronic properties. This quenched phase is metastable, hexagonal, and displays different magnetic properties from the slow-cooled and more thermodynamically stable monoclinic phase. High-resolution x-ray diffraction of the quenched hexagonal phase finds a first-order transition to a lower symmetry monoclinic phase on heating above ∼550 K. Magnetic susceptibility measurements of the quenched hexagonal phase reveal ferromagnetic ordering above room temperature, along with the two distinct transitions at ∼220 K and ∼70 K. Through neutron diffraction studies, we find the ∼220 K anomaly is a spin reorientation transition of the ferromagnetically aligned magnetic moments and the ∼70K feature represents a transition from a high-temperature ferromagnet to a low-temperature antiferromagnet. We suggest that these magnetic transitions are related to changes in the unit-cell dimensions and are connected to the temperature-dependent Hall resisitivity studied in two-dimensional heterostructures. This implies a link between structural, magnetic, and electronic properties in the “pseudo” two-dimensional chromium tellurides.

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Phys. Rev. B 113, 064417– Published 11 February, 2026
  • Received 16 September 2025
  • Accepted 24 December 2025
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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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