CrCl3 is a layered insulator that undergoes a crystallographic phase transition below room temperature and orders antiferromagnetically at low temperature. Weak van der Waals bonding between the layers and ferromagnetic in-plane magnetic order make it a promising material for obtaining atomically thin magnets and creating van der Waals heterostructures. In this work we have grown crystals of CrCl3, revisited the structural and thermodynamic properties of the bulk material, and explored mechanical exfoliation of the crystals. We find two distinct anomalies in the heat capacity at 14 and 17 K confirming that the magnetic order develops in two stages on cooling, with ferromagnetic correlations forming before long range antiferromagnetic order develops between them. This scenario is supported by magnetization data. A magnetic phase diagram is constructed from the heat capacity and magnetization results. We also find an anomaly in the magnetic susceptibility at the crystallographic phase transition, indicating some coupling between the magnetism and the lattice. First principles calculations accounting for van der Waals interactions also indicate spin-lattice coupling, and find multiple nearly degenerate crystallographic and magnetic structures consistent with the experimental observations. Finally, we demonstrate that monolayer and few-layer CrCl3 specimens can be produced from the bulk crystals by exfoliation, providing a path for the study of heterostructures and magnetism in ultrathin crystals down to the monolayer limit.

The ability to synthesize new complex oxide materials that belong to any of the large number of known oxide structural families relies typically on a general understanding of the relationship between the specific structure type and the chemical composition of its members. However, before one can create such a structure-composition relationship that enables the synthesis of new members, one needs structural information about a sizable number of existing compositions belonging to this structural family, somewhat of a ''chicken or the egg'' problem. In this Highlight we will use one family of oxides, specifically oxides related to the hexagonal perovskite structure, to illustrate how exploratory crystal growth methods have been used successfully to synthesize enough diverse compositions to enable the formulation of a general structural description. Furthermore, by now it appears that enough members with different compositions have been synthesized so that one can attempt to create a structurecomposition relationship that has predictive powers.

A series of seven compounds, Sr2Mn(OH)6, Ba2Mn(OH)6, Sr2Co(OH)6, Ba2Co(OH)6, Sr2Ni(OH)6, Ba2Ni(OH)6, and Ba2Cu(OH)6, were synthesized using a low-melting hydroflux, a hybrid approach between aqueous hydrothermal and molten hydroxide flux techniques. Crystals of the hexahydroxometallates were obtained by dissolving appropriate amounts of alkaline-earth nitrates or hydroxides and transition-metal oxides, acetates, or chlorides in the hydroflux and reacting at 180-230 °C. The isostructural compounds all crystallize in the monoclinic space group P2(1/n). The monoclinic structure consists of isolated transition-metal octahedra within a three-dimensional framework of corner- and edge-shared eight-coordinate, alkaline-earth polyhedra. Magnetic susceptibility data show that all compounds are simple paramagnets. Thermogravimetric analysis indicates that these hydroxides lose water between 215 and 350 °C and transform into oxide products, the identity of which depends on the metal cations present in the parent hexahydroxometallates.

Crystallographic structure information, magnetic agreement indices, neutron diffraction patterns and magnetic data plots, ICSD and CCDC numbers (PDF) Data for BaFe 4 O 7 (CIF) Data for Ba 0.89 K 0.22 Fe 4 O 7 (CIF)