Observation of Giant Surface Second-Harmonic Generation Coupled to Nematic Orders in the van der Waals Antiferromagnet FePS₃.

Abstract

Second-harmonic generation has been applied to study lattice, electronic, and magnetic proprieties in atomically thin materials. However, inversion symmetry breaking is usually required for the materials to generate a large signal. In this work, we report a giant second-harmonic generation that arises below the Néel temperature in few-layer centrosymmetric FePS₃. A layer-dependent study indicates the detected signal is from the second-order nonlinearity of the surface. The magnetism-induced surface second-harmonic response is 2 orders of magnitude larger than those reported in other magnetic systems, with the surface nonlinear susceptibility reaching 0.08-0.13 nm²/V in 2-5 L samples. By combing linear dichroism and second-harmonic generation experiments, we further confirm the giant second-harmonic generation is coupled to nematic orders formed by the three possible Zigzag antiferromagnetic domains. Our study shows that the surface second-harmonic generation is also a sensitive tool to study antiferromagnetic states in centrosymmetric atomically thin materials.