Ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic materials are of crucial importance in information storage and spintronics devices. Herein we present a comprehensive study of 2D Heisenberg-like antiferromagnetic material MnPS3 by optical contrast and Raman spectroscopy. We propose a criterion of 0.1 × (N – 1) < (ΔR/R)max < 0.1 × N (N ≤ 7) to quickly identify the layer number N by using maximum optical contrast (ΔR/R)max of few-layer MnPS3 on a SiO2/Si substrate (90 nm thick SiO2). The Raman modes are also identified by polarization Raman spectroscopy. Furthermore, by temperature-dependent Raman measurements, we obtain three phase transition temperatures of MnPS3. The transition temperature at around 80 K corresponds to the transition from the antiferromagnetic to paramagnetic phase; the one at around 120 K is related to its second magnetic phase transition temperature due to two-dimensional spin critical fluctuations; the one at around 55 K is associated with unbinding of spin vortices. Our studies provide more evidence to advance knowledge of the magnetic critical dynamics of 2D ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic systems.

The optical properties of the two-dimensional (2D) crystals are dominated by tightly bound electron-hole pairs (excitons) and lattice vibration modes (phonons). The exciton-phonon interaction is fundamentally important to understand the optical properties of 2D materials and thus help develop emerging 2D crystal based optoelectronic devices. Here, we presented the excitonic resonant Raman scattering (RRS) spectra of few-layer WS2 excited by 11 lasers lines covered all of A, B and C exciton transition energies at different sample temperatures from 4 to 300 K. As a result, we are not only able to probe the forbidden phonon modes unobserved in ordinary Raman scattering, but also can determine the bright and dark state fine structures of 1s A exciton. In particular, we also observed the quantum interference between low-energy discrete phonon and exciton continuum under resonant excitation. Our works pave a way to understand the exciton-phonon coupling and many-body effects in 2D materials.