Laser control of magnonic topological phases in antiferromagnets

Kouki Nakata, Se Kwon Kim, and Shintaro Takayoshi
Phys. Rev. B 100, 014421 – Published 17 July 2019

Abstract

We study the laser control of magnon topological phases induced by the Aharonov-Casher effect in insulating antiferromagnets (AFs). Since the laser electric field can be considered as a time-periodic perturbation, we apply the Floquet theory and perform the inverse frequency expansion by focusing on the high frequency region. Using the obtained effective Floquet Hamiltonian, we study nonequilibrium magnon dynamics away from the adiabatic limit and its effect on topological phenomena. We show that a linearly polarized laser can generate helical edge magnon states and induce the magnonic spin Nernst effect, whereas a circularly polarized laser can generate chiral edge magnon states and induce the magnonic thermal Hall effect. In particular, in the latter, we find that the direction of the magnon chiral edge modes and the resulting thermal Hall effect can be controlled by the chirality of the circularly polarized laser through the change from the left-circular to the right-circular polarization. Our results thus provide a handle to control and design magnon topological properties in the insulating AF.

  • Figure
  • Received 15 April 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.100.014421

©2019 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Kouki Nakata1, Se Kwon Kim2, and Shintaro Takayoshi3,4

  • 1Advanced Science Research Center, Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Tokai, Ibaraki 319-1195, Japan
  • 2Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211, USA
  • 3Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden 01187, Germany
  • 4Department of Quantum Matter Physics, University of Geneva, Geneva 1211, Switzerland

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Issue

Vol. 100, Iss. 1 — 1 July 2019

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