Temperature Evolution of Magnon-Polarons in the van der Waals Antiferromagnet FePS$_3$
Magnon polarons, hybrid excitations arising from magnon-phonon coupling, were investigated in the van der Waals antiferromagnet FePS3 using magneto-Raman scattering measurements at temperatures ranging from 4 K to the vicinity of the Néel temperature ($T_\mathrm{N}$ = 118 K). The lower Zeeman-split component of the magnon-like mode, tuned by the magnetic field toward the lower-energy phonon mode, exhibits an avoided crossing. The corresponding magnetic field decreases from approximately 13 T at 4 K to 5.6 T at 85 K, bringing the effect within reach of a standard laboratory magnet. A model of three coupled bosonic modes shows that the magnon-phonon coupling constant, approximately 2.7 cm$^{-1}$ at low temperatures, decreases significantly with increasing temperature, following a trend similar to the temperature-induced softening of the magnon mode. This decrease in magnon-phonon coupling is discussed in terms of a possible reduction in sublattice magnetization due to thermal fluctuations.