Fig. 1: Magnetic anisotropy energy (MAE) of ML CrCl3 and CrI3.
From: Meron-like topological spin defects in monolayer CrCl3
a, b MAE map (taking the out-of-plane FM state as a reference) for ML CrCl3 and CrI3, respectively. The figures in the middle panel are extracted from the longitude and latitude from (a) (as indicated by the dashed line), to amplify the variation from the out-of-plane direction to the in-plane direction and the nearly perfect isotropy within the material plane. The inset figure is the atomic structure of chromium trihalides. The red hexagon indicates the honeycomb structure formed by magnetic Cr atoms. c, d Are the schematic plots of the preferred magnetization directions for ML CrCl3 and CrI3, respectively.
