Magnon gap excitations in van der Waals antiferromagnet MnPSe3

Abstract

Magneto-spectroscopy methods have been employed to study the zero-wavevector magnon excitations in MnPSe(3). Experiments carried out as a function of temperature and the applied magnetic field show that two low-energy magnon branches of MnPSe(3) in its antiferromagnetic phase are gapped. The observation of two low-energy magnon gaps (at 1.70 +/- 0.05 meV and 0.09 +/- 0.01 meV) implies that MnPSe(3) is a biaxial antiferromagnet. A relatively strong out-of-plane anisotropy imposes the spin alignment to be in-plane whereas the spin directionality within the plane is governed by a factor of 2.5 x 10(-3) weaker in-plane anisotropy.