Real-space visualization of temperature- and layer-dependent susceptibility in the layered antiferromagnet CrSBr

Layered magnetic materials have recently garnered substantial interest as platforms for realizing tunable magnetic devices and studying fundamental two-dimensional (2D) magnetic properties. A growing body of research on chromium-based van der Waals (vdW) materials demonstrates the existence magnetism in 2D films down to single atomic layers. Among these, CrSBr has emerged as an air-stable layered antiferromagnetic (AFM) semiconductor with a high transition temperature (T_N ≈ 132 K) and gate-tunable magnetic ordering. However, the direct real-space visualization and temperature evolution of magnetic domains in CrSBr remains unexplored, and requires a sensitive local probe. To achieve this, we conducted a variable-temperature magnetic force microscopy (MFM) study under ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) conditions, revealing incipient magnetism well above T_N associated with the onset of in-plane magnetic correlations which eventually give way to layer-dependent magnetization in the low-temperature AFM phase (T < T_N). In addition, we observe temperature-dependent magnetic susceptibility and switching with a high degree of spatial inhomogeneity arising, in part, from the parity of the underlying layer number.