Twist-modulated magnetic interactions in bilayer van der Waals materials
Tomas T. Osterholt, D. O. Oriekhov, Lumen Eek, Cristiane Morais Smith, Rembert A. Duine
Published: 2025/9/17
Abstract
The ability to control magnetic interactions at the nanoscale is crucial for the development of next-generation spintronic devices and functional magnetic materials. In this work, we investigate theoretically, by means of many-body perturbation theory, how interlayer twisting modulates magnetic interactions in bilayer van der Waals systems composed of two ferromagnetic layers. We demonstrate that the relative strengths of the interlayer Heisenberg exchange interaction, the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, and the anisotropic exchange interaction can be significantly altered by varying the twist angle between the layers, thus leading to tunable magnetic textures. We further show that these interactions are strongly dependent on the chemical potential, enabling additional control via electrostatic gating or doping. Importantly, our approach is applicable to arbitrary twist angles and does not rely on the construction of a Moir\'e supercell, making it particularly efficient even at small twist angles.