In this thesis, the electronic properties of two-dimensional magnetic materials, transition metal trichlorides and transition metal phosphorus trichalcogenides, are studied by means of various spectroscopic techniques including photoelectron spectroscopy (PES), electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) and optical spectroscopy. The experiments on transition metal trichlorides mainly focus on manipulating the electronic structure of α−RuCl3 — a Kitaev spin liquid candidate material that, however, hosts an antiferromagnetic ground state at temperatures below 7 K. Such manipulation attempts include transition metal substitution by Cr, Ar+ sputtering of exfoliated flakes and the creation of an interface of α−RuCl3 with the organic semiconductor manganese (II) phtalocyanine (MnPc). To study the influence of transition metal substitution by Cr, the parent compounds α−RuCl3 and CrCl3, and the mixed compound Cr0.5Ru0.5Cl3 were studied by PES and EELS. The mixed compound preserves the +III oxidation state of Cr and Ru. The valence band resembles a superposition of the parent compounds and EELS reveals the appearance of a new optical absorption channel assigned to a Cr-Ru charge transfer. Ar+ sputtering decreases the chlorine content of exfoliated α−RuCl3 flakes. However, the properties of the sputtered film, namely the rate of chlorine loss and the work function, depend heavily on the initial flake thickness. The work function spans a remarkable range from Φ = 4.6 eV to 6.1 eV. The interface of α−RuCl3 with MnPc demonstrates the potential of α−RuCl3 as a strong electron acceptor. The work function and electron affinity of α−RuCl3 are characterized and the charge transfer from MnPc to α−RuCl3 is experimentally verified. In the second part of the thesis, two transition metal phosphorus trichalcogenide compounds are studied: FePS3 and NiPS3. Both are antiferromagnetic materials with FePS3 being of Ising-type and NiPS3 of anisotropic Heisenberg-type. Their electronic structure is spectroscopically investigated and the results are used as input for advanced density functional theory calculations (DFT+U) characterizing FePS3 as a Mott insulator and NiPS3 as a charge-transfer insulator. In the magnetically ordered state, magnetism and electronic properties are intertwined with the giant linear dichroism (LD) of FePS3 measured in optical transmission being the most impressive example. A microscopic understanding of the LD is provided with the DFT+U results giving confidence to the described model. For NiPS3, the origin of an extremely sharp magnetic exciton is studied bearing some analogy to the famous Zhang-Rice singlet state initially proposed for cuprates.:Contents iii List of Figures v Acronyms ix 1. Introduction 1 2. Experimental Techniques 3 2.1. Photoelectron Spectroscopy (PES) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.2. Three-step-model of Photoemission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.2.1. Photoabsorption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2.2.2. Propagation to the Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2.2.3. Escape into the Vacuum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.3. Spectral Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2.4. Energy-filtered Photoemission Electron Microscopy (PEEM) . . . . . 9 2.5. Background Signal of XPS and UPS Measurements . . . . . . . . . . 9 2.6. Electron Energy-loss Spectroscopy (EELS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 2.6.1. EELS Cross Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 2.7. The Dielectric Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.7.1. The Drude-Lorentz-model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 2.7.2. Related functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.7.3. Kramers-Kronig relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 2.8. Optical Microscopy and Spectroscopy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 2.8.1. Optical Microscopy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 2.8.2. Optical Spectroscopy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 2.8.3. Optical Contrast of Thin Films . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 2.9. Core Level Spectroscopy of Solids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 2.9.1. Spin-orbit Splitting and Notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 2.9.2. Core Level Spectroscopies: XPS and EELS/XAS . . . . . . . 26 2.9.3. Multiplet and Charge Transfer Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 2.10. Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 2.11. Details on Spectrometers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 2.11.1. nanoARPES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 2.11.2. nanoESCA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 2.11.3. Transmission EELS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 3. Manipulating the Electronic Structure of α−RuCl3 41 3.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 3.2. Tuning the Electronic Structure of the Trichlorine Honeycomb Lattice by Transition Metal Substitution: α−RuCl3, Cr0.5Ru0.5Cl3, CrCl3 . 47 3.2.1. Electron diffraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 3.2.2. Core Level Spectroscopy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 3.2.3. UPS Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 3.2.4. EELS Results in the Low Energy Region . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 3.2.5. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 3.3. Work Function Engineering of Atomically Thin α−RuCl3 by Arsputtering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 3.3.1. Characterization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 3.3.2. Work Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 3.3.3. XPS Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 3.3.4. UPS Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 3.3.5. Discussion and Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 3.4. Charge Transfer at the α−RuCl3/MnPc Interface . . . . . . . . . . . 66 3.4.1. Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 3.4.2. Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 3.4.3. Discussion and Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 4. Spectroscopic Investigation of NiPS3 and FePS3 75 4.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 4.1.1. Crystal Structure and Magnetic Properties . . . . . . . . . . 76 4.1.2. Electronic Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 4.2. FePS3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 4.2.1. UPS Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 4.2.2. XPS Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 4.2.3. Electron Diffraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 4.2.4. EELS Results in the Energy Region between 4 eV and 80 eV . 87 4.2.5. EELS Results in the Low Energy Region . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 4.2.6. Optical Spectroscopy and Linear Dichroism (LD) . . . . . . . 89 4.2.7. Discussion and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 4.3. NiPS3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 4.3.1. UPS Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 4.3.2. Core Level Spectroscopy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 4.3.3. Electron Diffraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 4.3.4. EELS Results in the Energy Region between 4 eV and 70 eV . 102 4.3.5. EELS in the Low Energy Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 4.3.6. Multiplet theory and RIXS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 4.3.7. Discussion and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 5. Summary and Outlook 109 A. Appendix 111 A.1. The Pseudo-Voigt Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 A.2. Calculation of Reciprocal Lattice Vectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Bibliography 113 / In dieser Arbeit wurden die elektronischen Eigenschaften von zweidimensionalen magnetischen Materialien, Übergangsmetall-Trichloriden und Übergangsmetall-Phosphor-Trichalkogeniden, untersucht. Dabei kamen verschiedene Spektroskopie-Techniken zum Einsatz: Photoelektronenspektroskopie (PES), Elektronen-Energieverlust-Spektroskopie (EELS) und optische Spektroskopie. Die Experimente an Übergangsmetall-Trichloriden zielen hauptsächlich auf die Manipulation der elektronischen Eigenschaften von α−RuCl3 ab. α−RuCl3 ist ein Kandidat für eine Kitaev Quantenspinflüssigkeit, das jedoch bei tiefen Temperaturen unter 7K einen antiferromagnetischen Grundzustand besitzt. Die Manipulationsversuche beinhalten die Substitution des Übergangsmetalls durch Cr, Ar+ sputtern von exfolierten Kristallflocken und die Erzeugung einer Grenzfläche zwischen α−RuCl3 und dem organischen Halbleiter Mangan (II) Phthalocyanin (MnPc). Um den Einfluss der Substitution des Übergangsmetalls durch Cr zu untersuchen, wurden die Ausgangsverbindungen α−RuCl3 und CrCl3, und die gemischte Verbindung Cr0.5Ru0.5Cl3 mittels PES und EELS untersucht. In der gemischten Verbindung liegen Cr und Ru weiterhin mit Oxidationszahl +III vor. Das Valenzband lässt sich als Überlagung der Ausgangsverbindungen darstellen und EELS Daten zeigen einen neuen optischen Absorptionskanal durch Ladungstransfer von Cr zu Ru. Ar+ sputtern reduziert den Chloranteil von exfolierten α−RuCl3-Flocken. Die Eigenschaften der gesputterten Filme, insbesondere Austrittsarbeit und Chlorverlust, hängen jedoch stark von der ursprünglichen Dicke der exfolierten Flocke ab. Die Austrittsarbeit zeigt eine beachtliche Spanne von Φ = 4.6 eV bis 6.1 eV. Die Grenzfläche von α−RuCl3 mit MnPc demonstriert das Potential von α−RuCl3 als starken Elektronenakzeptor. Die Austrittsarbeit und die Elektronenaffinität von α−RuCl3 wurden charakterisiert und der Ladungstransfer von MnPc zu α−RuCl3 wurde experimentell bestätigt. Im zweiten Teil der Arbeit werden zwei Vertreter der Übergangsmetall-Phosphor-Trichalkogeniden untersucht: FePS3 und NiPS3. Beide Materialien sind antiferromagnetisch, wobei FePS3 dem Ising-Typ entspricht und NiPS3 einem anisotropen Heisenberg-Modell. Die elektronische Struktur der beiden Materialien wurde durch spektroskopische Methoden untersucht und als Grundlage für DFT+U Rechnungen verwendet, wodurch FePS3 als Mott-Isolator und NiPS3 als Ladungstransfer-Isolator charakterisiert wurden. Im magnetisch geordneten Zustand sind elektronische und magnetische Eigenschaften verflochten, das sich am eindrucksvollsten im großen linearen dichroismus (LD) Effekt von FePS3 gemessen in optischer Transmission zeigt. Ein mikroskopisches Modell zur Erklärung des LD wird beschrieben und durch Ergebnisse aus DFT+U Rechnungen unterlegt. Bei NiPS3 wurde die Ursache für ein energetisch extrem scharfes, magnetisches Exziton untersucht, das Analogien zum bekannten Zhang-Rice-Singulett aufweist, welches ursprünglich für Kuprate vorgeschlagen wurde.:Contents iii List of Figures v Acronyms ix 1. Introduction 1 2. Experimental Techniques 3 2.1. Photoelectron Spectroscopy (PES) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.2. Three-step-model of Photoemission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.2.1. Photoabsorption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2.2.2. Propagation to the Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2.2.3. Escape into the Vacuum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.3. Spectral Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2.4. Energy-filtered Photoemission Electron Microscopy (PEEM) . . . . . 9 2.5. Background Signal of XPS and UPS Measurements . . . . . . . . . . 9 2.6. Electron Energy-loss Spectroscopy (EELS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 2.6.1. EELS Cross Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 2.7. The Dielectric Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.7.1. The Drude-Lorentz-model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 2.7.2. Related functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.7.3. Kramers-Kronig relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 2.8. Optical Microscopy and Spectroscopy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 2.8.1. Optical Microscopy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 2.8.2. Optical Spectroscopy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 2.8.3. Optical Contrast of Thin Films . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 2.9. Core Level Spectroscopy of Solids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 2.9.1. Spin-orbit Splitting and Notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 2.9.2. Core Level Spectroscopies: XPS and EELS/XAS . . . . . . . 26 2.9.3. Multiplet and Charge Transfer Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 2.10. Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 2.11. Details on Spectrometers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 2.11.1. nanoARPES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 2.11.2. nanoESCA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 2.11.3. Transmission EELS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 3. Manipulating the Electronic Structure of α−RuCl3 41 3.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 3.2. Tuning the Electronic Structure of the Trichlorine Honeycomb Lattice by Transition Metal Substitution: α−RuCl3, Cr0.5Ru0.5Cl3, CrCl3 . 47 3.2.1. Electron diffraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 3.2.2. Core Level Spectroscopy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 3.2.3. UPS Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 3.2.4. EELS Results in the Low Energy Region . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 3.2.5. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 3.3. Work Function Engineering of Atomically Thin α−RuCl3 by Arsputtering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 3.3.1. Characterization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 3.3.2. Work Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 3.3.3. XPS Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 3.3.4. UPS Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 3.3.5. Discussion and Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 3.4. Charge Transfer at the α−RuCl3/MnPc Interface . . . . . . . . . . . 66 3.4.1. Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 3.4.2. Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 3.4.3. Discussion and Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 4. Spectroscopic Investigation of NiPS3 and FePS3 75 4.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 4.1.1. Crystal Structure and Magnetic Properties . . . . . . . . . . 76 4.1.2. Electronic Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 4.2. FePS3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 4.2.1. UPS Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 4.2.2. XPS Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 4.2.3. Electron Diffraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 4.2.4. EELS Results in the Energy Region between 4 eV and 80 eV . 87 4.2.5. EELS Results in the Low Energy Region . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 4.2.6. Optical Spectroscopy and Linear Dichroism (LD) . . . . . . . 89 4.2.7. Discussion and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 4.3. NiPS3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 4.3.1. UPS Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 4.3.2. Core Level Spectroscopy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 4.3.3. Electron Diffraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 4.3.4. EELS Results in the Energy Region between 4 eV and 70 eV . 102 4.3.5. EELS in the Low Energy Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 4.3.6. Multiplet theory and RIXS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 4.3.7. Discussion and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 5. Summary and Outlook 109 A. Appendix 111 A.1. The Pseudo-Voigt Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 A.2. Calculation of Reciprocal Lattice Vectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Bibliography 113

In this dissertation, we utilized a wide range of complementary synchrotron-based X-ray spectroscopic and scattering techniques, notably X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), hard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (HAXPES), standing-wave X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (SW-XPS), and X-ray resonant magnetic reflectometry (XRMR), to understand and control the phenomenon of emergent interfacial ferromagnetism in strongly-correlated oxide heterostructures. This field holds great promise for the development of next-generation spintronic devices. In the heterostructures we investigated, neither of the parent oxide layers exhibits inherent ferromagnetism. Yet, when these layers are combined in an epitaxial film stack, charge-transfer phenomena give rise to an emergent ferromagnetic state at the interface. Throughout my graduate studies, I focused on studying such charge-transfer phenomena as the driving force for stabilizing interfacial ferromagnetism. This dissertation is structured around two main projects. The first project delves into the intriguing possibility of tuning the emergent interfacial ferromagnetism. More specifically, we investigated the mechanisms for suppressing interfacial charge transfer to gain control over and manipulate this magnetic phenomenon. In our second project, we explored a different facet of interfacial ferromagnetism, focusing on the origins of the imbalance in the magnitudes of the magnetic moment between the top and bottom interfaces in the same layer. Our investigation aimed to uncover the possible causes of this imbalance, ultimately leading us to scrutinize the role of defect states in this magnetic asymmetry. In the first part of this dissertation, we investigated the thickness-dependent metal-insulator transition within LaNiO3 and how it impacts the electronic and magnetic states at the interface between LaNiO3 and CaMnO3. We present a direct observation of a reduced effective valence state in the interfacial Mn cations. This reduction is most pronounced in the metallic LaNiO3/CaMnO3 superlattice, where the above-critical LaNiO3 thickness of 6-unit cells triggers this phenomenon, facilitated by the charge transfer of the itinerant Ni 3d eg electrons into the interfacial CaMnO3 layer. In contrast, when we examine the insulating superlattice with a LaNiO3 thickness below the critical value (2-unit cells), we observe a homogeneous effective valence state of Mn throughout the CaMnO3 layers. This homogeneity is attributed to the suppression of charge transfer across the interface. The second part of this dissertation delves deeply into the complexities of interfacial magnetism within the CaMnO3/CaRuO3 superlattices. Our experimental investigation unveiled an unexpected asymmetry in the strength of magnetism at these interfaces. Our findings suggest that within the superlattice CaMnO3/CaRuO3, the lower interface (CaRuO3/CaMnO3) exhibits a weaker magnetic moment when compared to the upper interface (CaMnO3/CaRuO3). This observation, supported by XRMR and XAS experimental data, was further clarified by first-principles density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Our calculations suggest that the observed magnetic asymmetry may be linked to the presence of oxygen vacancies at the interfaces. Our study significantly contributes to our understanding of interfacial ferromagnetism, potentially paving the way for controlling and manipulating this emergent property. This may be achieved by utilizing engineered defect states, offering exciting prospects for applications in the field of spintronics devices. / Physics

The proponents of non-conventional lightning protection devices claim that these devices are superior to the conventional Franklin Rod. Lack of systematic study and insufficient field data make it difficult to compare the non-conventional lightning protection devices with the conventional ones. Previously, the performance of various air terminals was studied by comparing the emission current through various dissipation devices in the MSU High Voltage Laboratory. The study of emission current from the air terminals gives an idea about the space charge developing over them. However, it does not show the behavior of air terminals to attract or repel lightning strikes. The present study presents the measurements of critical flashover (CFO) voltage of the air terminals. The CFO voltage shows the ability of an air terminal to attract or reduce the chance of lightning strike to the protected object.

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