Spontaneous emergence of phonon angular momentum through hybridization with magnons

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ning, Honglie, Luo, Tianchuang, Ilyas, Batyr, Boström, Emil Viñas, Park, Jaena, Kim, Junghyun, Park, Je-Geun, Juraschek, Dominik M., Rubio, Angel, Gedik, Nuh
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866917802136305664
author Ning, Honglie
Luo, Tianchuang
Ilyas, Batyr
Boström, Emil Viñas
Park, Jaena
Kim, Junghyun
Park, Je-Geun
Juraschek, Dominik M.
Rubio, Angel
Gedik, Nuh
author_facet Ning, Honglie
Luo, Tianchuang
Ilyas, Batyr
Boström, Emil Viñas
Park, Jaena
Kim, Junghyun
Park, Je-Geun
Juraschek, Dominik M.
Rubio, Angel
Gedik, Nuh
contents Chirality, the breaking of improper rotational symmetry, is a fundamental concept spanning diverse scientific domains. In condensed matter physics, chiral phonons, originating from circular atomic motions that carry angular momentum, have sparked intense interest due to their coupling to magnetic degrees of freedom, enabling potential phonon-controlled spintronics. However, modes and their counter-rotating counterparts are typically degenerate at the Brillouin zone center. Selective excitation of a single-handed circulating phonon requires external stimuli that break the degeneracy. Whether energetically nondegenerate circularly polarized phonons can appear spontaneously without structural or external symmetry breaking remains an open question. Here, we demonstrate that nondegenerate elliptically polarized phonon pairs can be induced by coupling to magnons with same helicity in the van der Waals antiferromagnet $\mathrm{FePSe_3}$. We confirm the presence of magnon-phonon hybrids, also known as magnon polarons, which exhibit inherent elliptical polarization with opposite helicities and distinct energies. This nondegeneracy enables their coherent excitation with linearly polarized terahertz pulses, which also endows these rotating modes with chirality. By tuning the polarization of the terahertz drive and measuring phase-resolved polarimetry of the resulting coherent oscillations, we determine the ellipticity and map the trajectory of these hybrid quasiparticles. Our findings establish a general approach to search for intrinsically nondegenerate phonons with angular momentum at the center of the Brillouin zone and introduce a new methodology for characterizing their ellipticity, outlining a roadmap towards chiral-phonon-controlled spintronic functionalities.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_10693
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Spontaneous emergence of phonon angular momentum through hybridization with magnons
Ning, Honglie
Luo, Tianchuang
Ilyas, Batyr
Boström, Emil Viñas
Park, Jaena
Kim, Junghyun
Park, Je-Geun
Juraschek, Dominik M.
Rubio, Angel
Gedik, Nuh
Materials Science
Optics
Chirality, the breaking of improper rotational symmetry, is a fundamental concept spanning diverse scientific domains. In condensed matter physics, chiral phonons, originating from circular atomic motions that carry angular momentum, have sparked intense interest due to their coupling to magnetic degrees of freedom, enabling potential phonon-controlled spintronics. However, modes and their counter-rotating counterparts are typically degenerate at the Brillouin zone center. Selective excitation of a single-handed circulating phonon requires external stimuli that break the degeneracy. Whether energetically nondegenerate circularly polarized phonons can appear spontaneously without structural or external symmetry breaking remains an open question. Here, we demonstrate that nondegenerate elliptically polarized phonon pairs can be induced by coupling to magnons with same helicity in the van der Waals antiferromagnet $\mathrm{FePSe_3}$. We confirm the presence of magnon-phonon hybrids, also known as magnon polarons, which exhibit inherent elliptical polarization with opposite helicities and distinct energies. This nondegeneracy enables their coherent excitation with linearly polarized terahertz pulses, which also endows these rotating modes with chirality. By tuning the polarization of the terahertz drive and measuring phase-resolved polarimetry of the resulting coherent oscillations, we determine the ellipticity and map the trajectory of these hybrid quasiparticles. Our findings establish a general approach to search for intrinsically nondegenerate phonons with angular momentum at the center of the Brillouin zone and introduce a new methodology for characterizing their ellipticity, outlining a roadmap towards chiral-phonon-controlled spintronic functionalities.
title Spontaneous emergence of phonon angular momentum through hybridization with magnons
topic Materials Science
Optics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.10693