under selective excitation*

The highly intertwined degrees of freedom seen in the magnetic van der Waals materials have provided an interesting platform for the study of new and interesting correlated physics. Uncovering the means to control the properties of these materials can open pathways to spintronic applications in information storage and processing. In the antiferromagnetic van der Waals insulator NiPS₃, various electronic and magnetic excitations have been observed; however, the interactions have yet to be fully explored. Using time-resolved terahertz spectroscopy to probe the low frequency optical properties of NiPS₃, we selectively excite key spectral regions using narrow pump frequencies to disentangle the nonequilibrium behavior. This work opens doors to the optical manipulation of magnetic instabilities in the transition-metal trichalcogenides.