Magneto-optical Kerr spectroscopy of excitons in a van der Waals magnet heterostructure

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Magneto-optical Kerr effect: linearly polarized light reflected from a magnetized van der Waals heterostructure has its polarization plane rotated.

An exciton in monolayer MoSe₂ one van der Waals gap above the magnet, drawn at 1:1 scale. The rings show where the electron is likely to be found around the hole; arrows indicate the direction of magnetization.

When a 2D semiconductor is stacked on a van der Waals magnet, the magnetism of the magnet can be imprinted on the semiconductor across the interface. We use wavelength-resolved magneto-optical Kerr spectroscopy, which measures how much the polarization of reflected light rotates, to study how this proximity magnetism shows up in the excitons (bound electron-hole pairs) of monolayer MoSe₂. Details are in the preprint below.

Magneto-optical Kerr spectroscopy of exciton Rydberg states in a magnetic van der Waals heterostructure. Astha Khandelwal, Benran Zhang, Madhusmita Jena, Zhenchao Wen, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Saroj P. Dash, Zhenglu Li, Ryo Kitaura, Bhagwati Prasad, Daichi Kozawa.

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Magneto-optical Kerr spectroscopy of excitons in a van der Waals magnet heterostructure