Dresden 2026 – scientific programme

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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus

MA 6: Magnetic Imaging Techniques I

MA 6.12: Talk

Monday, March 9, 2026, 12:30–12:45, POT/0361

Scanning Magnetometry of van der Waals magnets under in-situ controlled strain — •Yuchen Zhao¹, José Claudio Corsaletti Filho¹, Chenhui Zhang², Yejin Lee¹, Young-Gwan Choi¹, Elina Zhakina¹, Hyunsoo Yang², Elena Gati¹, Claire Donnelly¹, and Uri Vool¹ — ¹Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Dresden, Germany — ²National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

In recent years, van der Waals (vdW) magnets have emerged as one of the promising research directions in the field of condensed matter physics. Due to their thin nature, vdW magnets are mechanically more flexible than their bulk counterparts, allowing them to withstand greater strain. Because strain distorts the lattice, it is expected to modify magnetic properties and may even stabilize new magnetic states. While magnetic imaging of vdW materials has so far been limited to small applied strains, achieving and visualizing magnetic textures under large strain remains a significant challenge. Here, we report a technique that enables large in-situ controlled strain engineering of vdW magnets under scanning probe microscopy at room temperature. We use a piezoelectric actuator-based uniaxial strain cell to strain Fe₃GaTe₂ flakes as a proof-of-principle example of our method. By incorporating this setup into the Magnetic Force Microscope (MFM), we can locally probe the influence of strain on magnetic textures, revealing strain modulation of the magnetic configuration. In the future, this setup will open the investigations of strain-induced magnetic effects in a broad class of vdW systems.

Keywords: van der Waals magnets; in-situ strain tuning; scanning probe microscopy