Magnetic excitons in a suspended 2D antiferromagnetic membrane

Abstract Layered magnetic and strongly correlated materials, such as NiPS 3 , present a rich platform for condensed matter physics with intrinsic properties intertwined by magnetism and low-dimensionality. A suspended light-emitting 2D antiferromagnetic membrane forms a highly controllable hybrid system in which the interplay between spin ordering, optical and mechanical degrees of freedom can be uniquely explored. NiPS 3 hosts excitons responsible for a puzzling luminescence down to a few atomic layers, linked to its zigzag antiferromagnetic order. The exact nature of these excitons remains unclear. Here we report on the magnetic excitons of a suspended few-layer NiPS 3 membrane. We reveal nematic zigzag states and study the optical transitions induced by the magnon-mediated motion of the excitation in the magnetic lattice, resulting in magnon-dressed excitons. We observe a strain tuning of these emission lines, dependent on their microscopic origin, with rates that indicate a strong localization of the magnetic excitons, fading with the number of magnon-mediated hops.