Tunable Strong Magnetic Anisotropy in Two-Dimensional van der Waals Antiferromagnets

We show that the anisotropic energy of a 2D antiferromagnet is greatly enhanced via stacking on a magnetic substrate layer, arising from the sublattice-dependent interlayer magnetic interaction that defines an effective anisotropic energy. Interestingly, this effective energy couples strongly with the interlayer stacking order and the magnetic order of the substrate layer, providing unique mechanical and magnetic means to control the antiferromagnetic order. These two types of control methods distinctly affect the sublattice magnetization dynamics, with a change in the ratio of sublattice precession amplitudes in the former and its chirality in the latter. In moire superlattices formed by a relative twist or strain between the layers, the coupling with stacking order introduces a landscape of effective anisotropic energy across the moire, which can be utilized to create nonuniform antiferromagnetic textures featuring periodically localized low-energy magnons.