Manipulation of anisotropic Zhang-Rice exciton in NiPS3 by magnetic field.

The effect of external magnetic fields on the behavior of the Zhang-Rice exciton in NiPS₃, which captures the physics of spin-orbital entanglement in 2D XY-type antiferromagnets, remains unclear. This study presents systematic study of angle-resolved and polarization-resolved magneto-optical photoluminescence spectra of NiPS₃ in the Voigt geometry. We observed highly anisotropic, non-linear Zeeman splitting and polarization rotation of the Zhang-Rice exciton, which depends on the direction and intensity of the magnetic field and can be attributed to the spin-orbital coupling and field-induced spin reorientation. Furthermore, above the critical magnetic field, we detected additional splitting of the exciton peaks, indicating the coexistence of various orientations of Néel vector. This study characterizes orbital change of Zhang-Rice exciton and field-induced spin-reorientation phase transitions in a 2D hexagonal XY-type antiferromagnet, and it further demonstrates the continuous manipulation of the spin and polarization of the Zhang-Rice exciton. NiPS3 is a van der Waals antiferromagnet with a rich optical response including an exciton of very narrow linewidth, the origin of which is still a topic of active discussion. Herein, Song, Lv and coauthors study the response of the Zhang-Rice exciton to applied magnetic fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]