Evidence of Kitaev interaction in monolayer 1T-CrTe₂

The two-dimensional 1T-CrTe2 has been an attractive room-temperature van der Waals magnet which has a potential application in spintronic devices. Although it was recognized as a ferromagnetism in the past, monolayer 1T-CrTe2 was recently found to exhibit zigzag antiferromagnetism with the easy axis oriented at 70 degrees to the perpendicular direction of the plane. Therefore, the origin of the intricate anisotropic magnetic behavior therein is well worth thorough exploration. Here, by applying density functional theory with spin spiral method, we demonstrate that the Kitaev interaction, together with the single-ion anisotropy and other off-diagonal exchanges, is amenable to explain the magnetic orientation in the metallic 1T-CrTe2. Moreover, the Ruderman-Kittle-Kasuya-Yosida interaction can also be extracted from the dispersion calculations, which explains the metallic behavior of 1T-CrTe2. Our results demonstrate that 1T-CrTe2 is potentially a rare metallic Kitaev material.