Scanning tunneling spectroscopy of magnetic quantum impurities in two-dimensional magnets

We study scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS) of magnetic quantum impurities in (partially) polarized phases of two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals magnets. Focusing on the Kitaev-Heisenberg honeycomb model for transition metal trihalides, e.g., CrI₃ or α-RuCl₃, we consider adatom and substitutional impurity positions. Unlike the non-magnetic case, magnetic impurities can induce bound states below the magnon gap, whose energy one can measured by STS at finite bias voltage. Whenever the bound state energy vanishes as function of the magnetic field, we predict discontinuous local spin transitions which are expected to be ubiquitous in 2D magnets. They can be detected by STS in the zero-bias limit.