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Magnon eigenmodes in easy-plane antiferromagnetic insulators are linearly polarized and are not expected to carry any net spin angular momentum. Motivated by recent nonlocal spin transport experiments in the easy-plane phase of hematite, we perform a series of micromagnetic simulations in a nonlocal geometry at finite temperatures. We show that by tuning an external magnetic field, we can control the magnon eigenmodes and the polarization of the spin transport signal in these systems. We argue that a coherent beating oscillation between two orthogonal linearly polarized magnon eigenmodes is the mechanism responsible for finite spin transport in easy-plane antiferromagnetic insulators. The sign of the detected spin signal is also naturally explained by the proposed coherent beating mechanism. Our finding opens a path for on-demand control of the spin signal in a large class of easy-plane antiferromagnetic insulators.

The interfacial coupling between electrons and magnons in adjacent layers can mediate an attractive electron-electron interaction and induce superconductivity. We consider magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene sandwiched between two ferromagnetic insulators to optimize this effect. As a result, magnons induce an interlayer superconducting state characterized by $p$-wave symmetry. We investigate two candidate ferromagnets. The van der Waals ferromagnet CrI$_3$ stands out because it allows compression to tune the superconducting state with an exponential sensitivity. This control adds a new dimension to the tunability of twisted bilayer graphene. Our results open a new path for exploring magnon-induced superconductivity., 17 pages, 3 figures

The ability of magnetic materials to modify superconducting systems is an active research area for possible applications in thermoelectricity, quantum sensing, and spintronics. We consider the fundamental properties of the Josephson effect in a third class of magnetic materials beyond ferromagnets and antiferromagnets: altermagnets. We show that despite having no net magnetization, altermagnets induce $0$-$\pi$ oscillations. The decay length and oscillation period of the Josephson coupling are qualitatively different from ferromagnetic junctions and depend on the crystallographic orientation of the altermagnet. The Josephson effect in altermagnets thus serves a dual purpose: it acts as a signature that distinguishes altermagnetism from conventional (anti)ferromagnetism and offers a way to tune the supercurrent via flow direction anisotropy., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures

Recent works have predicted materials featuring bands with a large spin-splitting distinct from ferromagnetic and relativistically spin-orbit coupled systems. Materials displaying this property are known as altermagnets and feature a spin-polarized band structure reminiscent of a $d$-wave superconducting order parameter. We here consider the contact between an altermagnet and a superconductor and determine how the altermagnetism affects the fundamental process of Andreev reflection. We show that the resulting charge conductance depends strongly on the interfacial orientation of the altermagnet relative to the superconductor, displaying features similar to normal metals or ferromagnets. The zero-bias conductance peak present at the interface in the $d$-wave case are robust toward the presence of an altermagnetic interaction. Moreover, the spin conductance strongly depends on the orientation of the altermagnet relative the interface. These results show how the anisotropic altermagnetic state can be probed by conductance spectroscopy and how it offers voltage control over charge and spin currents that are modulated due to superconductivity., Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures

The antiferromagnetic semiconductor CuFeS$_2$ belongs to a magnetic symmetry class that is of interest for spintronics applications. In addition, its crystal lattice is compatible with Si, making it possible to integrate it with non-magnetic semiconducting structures. Therefore, we investigate this material by finding the effective $\boldsymbol{k}\cdot\boldsymbol{p}$ Hamiltonian for the electron- and hole bands. We base this description on \textit{ab initio} calculations and classify the electronic bands by their symmetry. As a result, we find that CuFeS$_2$ exhibits spin-polarized bands and an anomalous Hall effect. Finally, we suggest using cyclotron resonance to verify our proposed effective mass tensors at the conduction band minimum and valence band maximum., 13 pages, 8 figures

We propose a mechanism for magnon-plasmon coupling and hybridization in ferromagnetic (FM) and antiferromagnetic (AFM) systems. The electric field associated with plasmon oscillations creates a non-equilibrium spin density via the inverse spin galvanic effect. This plasmon-induced spin density couples to magnons by an exchange interaction. The strength of magnon-plasmon coupling depends on the magneto-electric susceptibility of the system and the wavevector at which the level repulsion is happened. This wavevector may be tuned by an applied magnetic field. In AFM systems, the degeneracy of two chiral magnons is broken in the presence of a magnetic field, and we find two separate hybrid modes for left-handed and right-handed AFM magnons. Furthermore, we show that magnon-plasmon coupling in AFM systems is enhanced because of strong intra-sublattice spin dynamics. We argue that the recently discovered two-dimensional magnetic systems are ideal platforms to investigate proposed magnon-plasmon hybrid modes., 5 pages, 1 figure

The recent emergence of magnetic van der Waals materials allows for the investigation of current induced magnetization manipulation in two dimensional materials. Uniquely, Fe3GeTe2 has a crystalline structure that allows for the presence of bulk spin-orbit torques (SOTs), that we quantify in a Fe3GeTe2 flake. From the symmetry of the measured torques, we identify the current induced effective fields using harmonic analysis and find dominant bulk SOTs, which arise from the symmetry in the crystal structure. Our results show that Fe3GeTe2 uniquely can exhibit bulk SOTs in addition to the conventional interfacial SOTs enabling magnetization manipulation even in thick single layers without the need for complex multilayer engineering., Comment: 19 pages 4 figures

A recent proof of concept showed that cavity photons can mediate superconducting (SC) signatures to a ferromagnetic insulator (FI) over a macroscopic distance [Phys. Rev. B, 102, 180506(R) (2020)]. In contrast with conventional proximity systems, this facilitates long-distance FI$\unicode{x2013}$SC coupling, local subjection to different drives and temperatures, and studies of their mutual interactions without proximal disruption of their orders. Here we derive a microscopic theory for these interactions, with an emphasis on the leading effect on the FI, namely, an induced anisotropy field. In an arbitrary practical example, we find an anisotropy field of $14 \unicode{x2013} 16$ $\mu$T, which is expected to yield an experimentally appreciable tilt of the FI spins for low-coercivity FIs such as Bi-YIG. We discuss the implications and potential applications of such a system in the context of superconducting spintronics., Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures

Spin transfer torque and spin pumping are central reciprocal phenomena in spintronics. These phenomena occur in hybrid systems of normal metals and magnets. Spin transfer is the conversion of spin currents in metals to a torque on the magnetization of magnets. Spin pumping is the emission of spin currents from precessing magnets. Here, we demonstrate a general way to understand these effects within a quantum out-of-equilibrium path-integral model. Our results agree with known expressions for spin transfer and spin pumping in terms of transverse (mixing) conductances when there are no fluctuations. However, at a finite temperature, frequency or spin accumulation, the magnet also experiences fluctuating torques. In the classical regime, when the thermal energy is larger than the bias voltage and precession frequency, we reproduce the classical Brownian-Langevin forces associated with spin transfer and spin pumping. At low temperatures, in the quantum regime, we demonstrate that magnetization fluctuations differ in the elastic and inelastic electron transport regimes. Furthermore, we show how additional transport coefficients beyond the mixing conductance govern the fluctuations. Some of these coefficients are related to electron shot noise because of the discrete spin angular momentum of electrons. We estimate the fluctuation coefficients of clean, tunnel, and disordered junctions and in the case of an insulating magnet. Our results open a path for exploring low-temperature magnetization dynamics and spin caloritronics., 22 pages, 1 figure

The combination of parametric pumping and spin-transfer torque is a powerful approach that enables high-level control over magnetic excitations in thin-film ferromagnets. The excitation parameters, such as pumping power and external field strength, affect the instabilities of individual magnon modes. We theoretically explore how the simultaneous effects of parametric pumping and spin transfer torque influence these magnetic instabilities in a thin-film ferromagnet. Within the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert framework, we perform micromagnetic simulations of magnon excitations in yttrium iron garnet by pumping, spin transfer torque, and a combination of the two. We find that consistent with experimental results, the magnitude and direction of the spin-transfer torque tune the parametric instability thresholds.

Unlike ferromagnetism, antiferromagnetism cannot readily be included in the quasiclassical Keldysh theory because of the rapid spatial variation in the directions of the magnetic moments. The quasiclassical framework is useful because it separates the quantum effects occurring at length scales comparable to the Fermi wavelength from other length scales, and has successfully been used to study a wide range of phenomena involving both superconductivity and ferromagnetism. Starting from a tight-binding Hamiltonian, we develop general quasiclassical equations of motion and boundary conditions, which can be used to describe two-sublattice metallic antiferromagnets in the dirty limit. The boundary conditions are applicable also for spin-active boundaries that can be either compensated or uncompensated. Additionally, we show how nonuniform or dynamic magnetic textures influence the equations and we derive a general expression for observables within this framework., Comment: 24 pages, 4 figures

Antiferromagnets have no net spin-splitting on the scale of the superconducting coherence length. Despite this, antiferromagnets have been observed to suppress superconductivity in a similar way as ferromagnets, a phenomenon that still lacks a clear understanding. We find that this effect can be explained by the role of impurities in antiferromagnets. Using quasiclassical Green's functions, we study the proximity effect and critical temperature in diffusive superconductor-metallic antiferromagnet bilayers. The non-magnetic impurities acquire an effective magnetic component in the antiferromagnet. This not only reduces the critical temperature but also separates the superconducting correlations into short-ranged and long-ranged components, similar to ferromagnetic proximity systems., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures

We study magneto-transport in heterostructures composed of the van der Waals antiferromagnet CrPS$_{4}$ and the heavy metals Pt and Pd. The transverse resistance (R$_{xy}$) signal reveals the spin-flop transition of CrPS$_{4}$ and a strongly enhanced magnetic ordering temperature (>300 K), which might originate from a strong spin-orbit coupling at the interface. While CrPS$_{4}$/Pt devices allow for easy detection of the spin-flop transition, CrPS$_{4}$/Pd devices show a more substantial enhancement in magnetic ordering temperature and exhibit a topological Hall effect signal, possibly related to chiral spin structures at the interface. The longitudinal magnetoresistance (R$_{xx}$) results from a combination of spin-Hall magnetoresistance and the negative magnetoresistance that can be explained by a field-induced change of the electronic band structure of CrPS$_{4}$., 19 pages, 4 figures

We report generic and tunable crossed Andreev reflection (CAR) in a superconductor sandwiched between two antiferromagnetic layers. We consider recent examples of two-dimensional magnets with hexagonal lattices, where gate voltages control the carrier type and density, and predict a robust signature of perfect CAR in the nonlocal differential conductance with one electron-doped and one hole-doped antiferromagnetic lead. The magnetic field-free and spin-degenerate CAR signal is electrically controlled and visible over a large voltage range, showing promise for solid-state quantum entanglement applications.

At the interface between a ferromagnetic insulator and a superconductor there is a coupling between the spins of the two materials. We show that when a supercurrent carried by triplet Cooper pairs flows through the superconductor, the coupling induces a magnon spin current in the adjacent ferromagnetic insulator. The effect is dominated by Cooper pairs polarized in the same direction as the ferromagnetic insulator, so that charge and spin supercurrents produce similar results. Our findings demonstrate a way of converting Cooper pair supercurrents to magnon spin currents., 8 pages, 2 figures

Kitaev spin liquids (KSLs) contain both itinerant Majorana fermions and localized $Z_2$ flux excitations. The mobile fermions transport energy, while the fluxes hinder heat flow. By controlling the flux configuration, one can separate a KSL into different domains via $Z_2$ flux walls. We show that at low temperatures, the wall significantly suppresses the Majorana-mediated Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) interaction and blocks the heat transfer between domains., Comment: 6 pages and 4 figures

Topologically non-trivial spin textures, such as skyrmions and dislocations, display emergent electrodynamics and can be moved by spin currents over macroscopic distances. These unique properties and their nanoscale size make them excellent candidates for the development of next-generation logic gates, race-track memory, and artificial synapses for neuromorphic computing. A major challenge for these applications - and the investigation of nanoscale magnetic structures in general - is the realization of detection schemes that provide high resolution and sensitivity. We study the local magnetic properties of disclinations, dislocations, and domain walls in FeGe, and reveal a pronounced response that distinguishes the individual spin textures from the helimagnetic background. Combination of magnetic force microscopy and micromagnetic simulations links the non-linear response to the local magnetic susceptibility. Based on the findings, we propose a read-out scheme using superconducting micro-coils, representing an innovative approach for detecting topologically non-trivial spin textures and domain walls in device-relevant geometries.

We study theoretically and experimentally the spin pumping signals induced by the resonance of canted antiferromagnets with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction and demonstrate that they can generate easily observable inverse spin-Hall voltages. Using a bilayer of hematite/heavy metal as a model system, we measure at room temperature the antiferromagnetic resonance and an associated inverse spin-Hall voltage, as large as in collinear antiferromagnets. As expected for coherent spin pumping, we observe that the sign of the inverse spin-Hall voltage provides direct information about the mode handedness as deduced by comparing hematite, chromium oxide and the ferrimagnet yttrium-iron garnet. Our results open new means to generate and detect spin currents at terahertz frequencies by functionalizing antiferromagnets with low damping and canted moments.

Dynamical magnets can pump spin currents into superconductors. To understand such a phenomenon, we develop a method utilizing the generalized Usadel equation to describe time-dependent situations in superconductors in contact with dynamical ferromagnets. Our proof-of-concept theory is valid when there is sufficient dephasing at finite temperatures, and when the ferromagnetic insulators are weakly polarized. We derive the effective equation of motion for the Keldysh Green's function focusing on a thin film superconductor sandwiched between two noncollinear ferromagnetic insulators of which one is dynamical. In turn, we compute the spin currents in the system as a function of the temperature and the magnetizations' relative orientations. When the induced Zeeman splitting is weak, we find that the spin accumulation in the superconducting state is smaller than in the normal states due to the lack of quasiparticle states inside the gap. This feature gives a lower backflow spin current from the superconductor as compared to a normal metal. Furthermore, in superconductors, we find that the ratio between the backflow spin current in the parallel and anti-parallel magnetization configuration depends strongly on temperature, in contrast to the constant ratio in normal metals., 12 pages, 4 figures

Cavity spintronics recently heralded non-local magnonic signal transfer between magnetic samples. Here we show that by including superconductors in the cavity, we can make use of these principles to bring composite superconductor--ferromagnet systems to the macroscale. We analyze how a superconductor's a.c. conductivity influences the spin dynamics of a spatially separated magnet, and we discuss the potential impact on spintronic applications., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; contains supplementary information, with 1 figure

We demonstrate that antiferromagnet-superconductor (AF-S) junctions show qualitatively different transport properties than normal metal--superconductor (N-S) and ferromagnet-superconductor (F-S) junctions. We attribute these transport features to the presence of two different scattering processes in AF-S junctions, i.e., specular reflection of holes and retroreflection of electrons. Using the Blonder-Tinkham-Klapwijk formalism, we find that the electrical and thermal conductances depend nontrivially on antiferromagnetic exchange strength, voltage, and temperature bias. Furthermore, we show that the interplay between the N\'eel vector direction and the interfacial Rashba spin-orbit coupling leads to a large anisotropic magnetoresistance. The unusual transport properties make AF-S interfaces unique among the traditional condensed-matter-system-based superconducting junctions.

Spin insulatronics covers efforts to generate, detect, control, and utilize high-fidelity pure spin currents and excitations inside magnetic insulators. Ultimately, the new findings may open doors for pure spin-based information and communication technologies. The aim is to replace moving charges with dynamical entities that utilize low-dissipation coherent and incoherent spin excitations in antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic insulators. The ambition is that the new pure spin-based system will suffer reduced energy losses and operate at high frequencies. In magnetic insulators, there are no mobile charge carriers that can dissipate energy. Integration with conventional electronics is possible via interface exchange interactions and spin-orbit couplings. In this way, the free electrons in the metals couple to the localized spins in the magnetic insulators. In turn, these links facilitate spin-transfer torques and spin-orbit torques across metal-insulator interfaces and the associated phenomena of spin-pumping and charge-pumping. The interface couplings also connect the electron motion inside the metals with the spin fluctuations inside the magnetic insulators. These features imply that the system can enable unprecedented control of correlations resulting from the electron-magnon interactions. We review recent developments to realize electric and thermal generation, manipulation, detection, and control of pure spin information in insulators., 37 pages

We consider electron transport in ferromagnets or antiferromagnets sandwiched between metals. When spins in the magnetic materials precess, they emit currents into the surrounding conductors. Generally, adiabatic pumping in mesoscopic systems also enhances current fluctuations. We generalize the description of current fluctuations driven by spin dynamics in three ways using scattering theory. First, our theory describes a general junction with any given electron scattering properties. Second, we consider antiferromagnets as well as ferromagnets. Third, we treat multiterminal devices. Using shot noise-induced current fluctuations to reveal antiferromagnetic resonance appears to be easier than using them to reveal ferromagnetic resonance. The origin of this result is that the associated energies are much higher as compared to the thermal energy. The thermal energy governs the Johnson-Nyquist that is independent of the spin dynamics. We give results for various junctions, such as ballistic and disordered contacts. Finally, we discuss experimental consequences., 11 pages, 2 figures

We investigate the role of disorder on the various topological magnonic phases present in deformed honeycomb ferromagnets. To this end, we introduce a bosonic Bott index to characterize the topology of magnon spectra in finite, disordered systems. The consistency between the Bott index and Chern number is numerically established in the clean limit. We demonstrate that topologically protected magnon edge states are robust to moderate disorder and, as anticipated, localized in the strong regime. We predict a disorder-driven topological phase transition, a magnonic analog of the "topological Anderson insulator" in electronic systems, where the disorder is responsible for the emergence of the nontrivial topology. Combining the results for the Bott index and transport properties, we show that bulk-boundary correspondence holds for disordered topological magnons. Our results open the door for research on topological magnonics as well as other bosonic excitations in finite and disordered systems., 6 pages, 3 figures (main text) + 4 pages, 4 figures (supplemental material)

A spin-pumping antiferromagnet Antiferromagnets have been used in spintronics mainly as a source of the so-called exchange bias. However, they hold promise for a much more active role given that their magnetization dynamics can in principle be much faster than those in ferromagnets. For this promise to materialize, antiferromagnets must learn the tricks that come naturally to ferromagnets. Vaidya et al. observed one such phenomenon called spin pumping (see the Perspective by Hoffmann). The researchers irradiated the antiferromagnet MnF 2 with circularly polarized subterahertz light, causing the spins in this material to spring into action. These dynamics, in turn, caused the injection of spin current into a layer of platinum adjacent to MnF 2 . Science , this issue p. 160 ; see also p. 135

Spin transport of magnonic excitations in uniaxial insulating antiferromagnets (AFs) is investigated. In linear response to spin biasing and a temperature gradient, the spin transport properties of normal-metal--insulating antiferromagnet--normal-metal heterostructures are calculated. We focus on the thick-film regime, where the AF is thicker than the magnon equilibration length. This regime allows the use of a drift-diffusion approach, which is opposed to the thin-film limit considered by Bender {\it et al.} 2017, where a stochastic approach is justified. We obtain the temperature- and thickness-dependence of the structural spin Seebeck coefficient $\mathcal{S}$ and magnon conductance $\mathcal{G}$. In their evaluation we incorporate effects from field- and temperature-dependent spin conserving inter-magnon scattering processes. Furthermore, the interfacial spin transport is studied by evaluating the contact magnon conductances in a microscopic model that accounts for the sub-lattice symmetry breaking at the interface. We find that while inter-magnon scattering does slightly suppress the spin Seebeck effect, transport is generally unaffected, with the relevant spin decay length being determined by non-magnon-conserving processes such as Gilbert damping. In addition, we find that while the structural spin conductance may be enhanced near the spin flip transition, it does not diverge due to spin impedance at the normal metal|magnet interfaces., 14 pages and 6 figures

Gilbert damping is a key property governing magnetization dynamics in ordered magnets. We present a theoretical study of intrinsic Gilbert damping induced by magnon decay in antiferromagnetic metals through $s\ensuremath{-}d$ exchange interaction. Our theory delineates the qualitative features of damping in metallic antiferromagnets owing to their bipartite nature. It provides analytic expressions for the damping parameters yielding values consistent with recent first-principles calculations. Magnon-induced intraband electron scattering is found to predominantly cause magnetization damping, whereas the N\'eel field is found to be damped via disorder. Depending on the conduction electron band structure, we predict that magnon-induced interband electron scattering around band crossings may be exploited to engineer a strong N\'eel field damping.

Antiferromagnetic materials can host spin-waves with polarizations ranging from circular to linear depending on their magnetic anisotropies. Until now, only easy-axis anisotropy antiferromagnets with circularly polarized spin-waves were reported to carry spin-information over long distances of micrometers. In this article, we report long-distance spin-transport in the easy-plane canted antiferromagnetic phase of hematite and at room temperature, where the linearly polarized magnons are not intuitively expected to carry spin. We demonstrate that the spin-transport signal decreases continuously through the easy-axis to easy-plane Morin transition, and persists in the easy-plane phase through current induced pairs of linearly polarized magnons with dephasing lengths in the micrometer range. We explain the long transport distance as a result of the low magnetic damping, which we measure to be below 0.0001 as in the best ferromagnets. All of this together demonstrates that long-distance transport can be achieved across a range of anisotropies and temperatures, up to room temperature, highlighting the promising potential of this insulating antiferromagnet for magnon-based devices.

Magnon polarons, a type of hybridized excitations between magnons and phonons, were first reported in yttrium iron garnet as anomalies in the spin Seebeck effect responses. Here, we report an observation of antiferromagnetic (AFM) magnon polarons in a uniaxial AFM insulator Cr_{2}O_{3}. Despite the relatively higher energy of magnon than that of the acoustic phonons, near the spin-flop transition of ∼6 T, the left-handed magnon spectrum shifts downward to hybridize with the acoustic phonons to form AFM magnon polarons, which can also be probed by the spin Seebeck effect. The spin Seebeck signal is founded to be enhanced due to the magnon polarons at low temperatures.

We develop a theory to compute the domain-wall magnetoresistance (DWMR) in antiferromagnetic (AFM) metals with different spin structures. In the diffusive transport regime, the DWMR can be either {\it negative} or positive depending on the domain-wall orientation and spin structure. In contrast, when the transport is in the ballistic regime, the DWMR is always positive, and the magnitude depends on the width and orientation of the domain wall. Our results pave the way of using electrical measurements for probing the internal spin structure in antiferromagnetic metals., Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures (This version is the same as the published one.)

Motivated by recent progress on synthesizing two-dimensional magnetic van der Waals systems, we propose a setup for detecting the topological Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) phase transition in spin-transport experiments on such structures. We demonstrate that the spatial correlations of injected spin-currents into a pair of metallic leads can be used to measure the predicted universal jump of $2/\pi$ in the ferromagnet spin-stiffness as well as its predicted universal square root dependence on temperature as the transition is approached from below. Our setup provides a simple route to measuring this topological phase transition in two-dimensional magnetic systems, something which up to now has proven elusive. It is hoped that this will encourage experimental efforts to investigate critical phenomena beyond the standard Ginzburg-Landau paradigm in low-dimensional magnetic systems with no local order parameter., Comment: 5 pages, Supplemental Material and 2 figures

We consider a contribution $w_{\text{ch}}$ to the micromagnetic energy density that is linear with respect to the first spatial derivatives of the local magnetization direction. For a generalized 2D Rashba ferromagnet, we present a microscopic analysis of this contribution and, in particular, demonstrate that it cannot be expressed through Lifshitz invariants beyond the linear order in the spin-orbit coupling (SOC) strength. Terms in $w_{\text{ch}}$ beyond Lifshitz invariants emerge as a result of spin rotation symmetry breaking caused by SOC. Effects of these terms on the phase diagram of magnetic states and spin-wave dispersion are discussed. Finally, we present a classification of terms in $w_{\text{ch}}$, allowed by symmetry, for each crystallographic point group., 6 pages, 2 figures + 4 page supplementary information

We study superconductivity on the surface of a topological insulator, mediated by magnetic fluctuations in an adjacent ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic insulator. Superconductivity can arise from effective interactions between helical fermions induced by interfacial fermion-magnon interactions. For both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic insulators, these fermion-fermion interactions have the correct structure to facilitate pairing between particles located on the same side of the Fermi surface, also known as Amperean pairing. In antiferromagnets, the strength of the induced interactions can be enhanced by coupling the topological insulator asymmetrically to the two sublattices of the antiferromagnet. This effect is further amplified by next nearest neighbor frustration in the antiferromagnetic insulator. The enhancement makes the induced interactions significantly stronger in the antiferromagnetic case, as compared to the ferromagnetic case. These results indicate that an uncompensated antiferromagnetic interface might be a better candidate than a ferromagnetic interface for proximity-induced magnon-mediated superconductivity on the surface of a topological insulator., 12 pages, 9 figures

We study the formation of a room temperature magnon Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in nanoscopic systems and demonstrate that its lifetime is influenced by the spatial confinement. We predict how dipolar interactions and nonlinear magnon scattering assist in the generation of a metastable magnon BEC in energy-quantized nanoscopic devices. We verify our prediction by a full numerical simulation of the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation and demonstrate the generation of magnon BEC in confined insulating magnets of yttrium iron garnet. We directly map out the nonlinear magnon scattering processes behind this phase transition to show how fast quantized thermalization channels allow the BEC formation in confined structures. Based on our results, we discuss a new mechanism to manipulate the BEC lifetime in nanoscaled systems. Our study greatly extends the freedom to study the dynamics of magnon BEC in realistic systems and to design integrated circuits for BEC-based applications at room temperature., 9 pages, 5 figures

Recent experiments demonstrate that antiferromagnets exhibit the spin Hall effect. We study a tight-binding model of an antiferromagnet on a square lattice with Rashba spin-orbit coupling and disorder. By exact diagonalization of a finite system connected to reservoirs within the Landauer-B$\ddot{\text{u}}$ttiker formalism, we compute the transverse spin Hall current in response to a longitudinal voltage difference. Surprisingly, the spin Hall conductance can be considerably larger in antiferromagnets than in normal metals. We compare our results to the Berry-phase-induced spin Hall effect governed by the intrinsic contribution in the Kubo formula. The Berry-phase-induced intrinsic spin Hall conductivity in bulk systems shows the opposite behavior: large exchange couplings in AFs drastically reduce the spin Hall current., 12 Figures

The spin excitations of ordered magnets - magnons - mediate transport in magnetic insulators. Their bosonic nature makes them qualitatively distinct from electrons. These features include quantum properties traditionally realized with photons. In this perspective, we present an intuitive discussion of one such phenomenon. Equilibrium magnon-squeezing manifests unique advantageous with magnons as compared to photons, including properties such as entanglement. Building upon the recent progress in the fields of spintronics and quantum optics, we outline challenges and opportunities in this emerging field of quantum magnonics., Comment: Invited Perspectives article

We theoretically study spin pumping from a layered van der Waals antiferromagnet in its canted ground state into an adjacent normal metal. We find that the resulting dc spin pumping current bears contributions along all spin directions. Our analysis allows for detecting intra- and cross-sublattice spin-mixing conductances via measuring the two in-plane spin current components. We further show that sublattice symmetry-breaking Gilbert damping can be realized via interface engineering and induces a dissipative coupling between the optical and acoustic magnon modes. This realizes magnon level attraction and exceptional points in the system. Furthermore, the dissipative coupling and cross-sublattice spin pumping contrive to produce an unconventional spin current in the out-of-plane direction. Our findings provide a route to extract the spin mixing conductance matrix and uncovers the unique opportunities, such as level attraction, offered by van der Waals antiferromagnet-normal metal hybrids., Comment: 9 pages and 3 figures. Supplemental Material included

Employing the concept of two-mode squeezed states from quantum optics, we demonstrate a revealing physical picture for the antiferromagnetic ground state and excitations. Superimposed on a Néel ordered configuration, a spin-flip restricted to one of the sublattices is called a sublattice magnon. We show that an antiferromagnetic spin-up magnon is composed of a quantum superposition of states with n + 1 spin-up and n spin-down sublattice magnons and is thus an enormous excitation despite its unit net spin. Consequently, its large sublattice spin can amplify its coupling to other excitations. Employing von Neumann entropy as a measure, we show that the antiferromagnetic eigenmodes manifest a high degree of entanglement between the two sublattices, thereby establishing antiferromagnets as reservoirs for strong quantum correlations. Based on these insights, we outline strategies for exploiting the strong quantum character of antiferromagnetic (squeezed) magnons and give an intuitive explanation for recent experimental and theoretical findings in antiferromagnetic magnon spintronics. © American Physical Society 2019.

Energy barriers associated with a carrier depletion layer at semiconductor/metal contacts serve as building blocks for modern electronic technology. Interfacial charge transfer is a general effect occurring even in metallic junctions. It might enable spin transport property tailoring in emerging spin-orbitronic devices but is rarely explored via conventional electrical techniques due to the narrow atomic-scale barrier width. Here, by employing a diffusive spin current with the spin Hall effect, we provide evidence that energy barriers are crucial for spin transport even in metallic junctions. In Ni$_{81}$Fe$_{19}$/Bi$_{0.1}$Sb$_{0.9}$ bilayers, carrier depletion region formation governs spin transmission and reflection, causing a sizable field-like torque much larger than the damping-like counterpart as a distinct tunnelling spin-orbit torque signature. Our theory reveals that interfacial tunnelling across the depletion region modulates the spin mixing conductance imaginary part such that it exceeds the real part in this metal/semimetal heterostructure, contrary to conventional wisdom. By minimizing the work function difference, we demonstrate a more than two orders of magnitude enhancement of the spin mixing conductance real part in Co$_{72}$Tb$_{28}$/Bi$_{0.1}$Sb$_{0.9}$ bilayers free from energy barriers. Our results provide a new mechanism to control the spin transport and spin torque phenomena considering interfacial engineering of metallic heterostructures.

Topological magnetic textures have attracted considerable interest since they exhibit new properties and might be useful in information technology. Magnetic hopfions are three-dimensional (3D) spatial variations in the magnetization with a non-trivial Hopf index. We find that in ferromagnetic materials, two types of hopfions, Bloch-type and N\'{e}el-type hopfions, can be excited as metastable states in the presence of bulk and interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions, respectively. We further investigate how hopfions can be driven by currents via spin-transfer torques (STTs) and spin-Hall torques (SHTs). Distinct from 2D ferromagnetic skyrmions, hopfions have a vanishing gyrovector. Consequently, there are no undesirable Hall effects. N\'{e}el-type hopfions move along the current direction via both STT and SHT, while Bloch-type hopfions can be moved either transverse to the current direction by SHT or parallel to the current direction by STT. Our findings open the door to utilizing hopfions as information carriers., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures in main text + 8 pages, 4 figures in SM

Antiferromagnets possess a number of intriguing and promising properties for electronic devices, which include a vanishing net magnetic moment and thus insensitivity to large magnetic fields and characteristic terahertz frequency dynamics. However, probing the antiferromagnetic ordering is challenging without synchrotron-based facilities. Here, we determine the material parameters of the insulating iron oxide hematite, α-Fe2O3, using the surface sensitive spin-Hall magnetoresistance (SMR). Combined with a simple analytical model, we extract the antiferromagnetic anisotropies and the bulk Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya field over a wide range of temperatures and magnetic fields. Across the Morin phase transition, we show that the electrical response is dominated by the antiferromagnetic Néel vector rather than by the emergent weak magnetic moment. Our results highlight that the surface sensitivity of SMR enables access to the magnetic anisotropies of antiferromagnetic crystals, and also of thin films, where other methods to determine anisotropies such as bulk-sensitive magnetic susceptibility measurements do not provide sufficient sensitivity. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Electrons and holes residing on the opposing sides of an insulating barrier and experiencing an attractive Coulomb interaction can spontaneously form a coherent state known as an indirect exciton condensate. We study a trilayer system where the barrier is an antiferromagnetic insulator. The electrons and holes here additionally interact via interfacial coupling to the antiferromagnetic magnons. We show that by employing magnetically uncompensated interfaces, we can design the magnon-mediated interaction to be attractive or repulsive by varying the thickness of the antiferromagnetic insulator by a single atomic layer. We derive an analytical expression for the critical temperature $T_c$ of the indirect exciton condensation. Within our model, anisotropy is found to be crucial for achieving a finite $T_c$, which increases with the strength of the exchange interaction in the antiferromagnetic bulk. For realistic material parameters, we estimate $T_c$ to be around 7 K, the same order of magnitude as the current experimentally achievable exciton condensation where the attraction is solely due to the Coulomb interaction. The magnon-mediated interaction is expected to cooperate with the Coulomb interaction for condensation of indirect excitons, thereby providing a means to significantly increase the exciton condensation temperature range., 7+13 Pages, 2+1 figures. Added discussion of retardation effects. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Lett

Magnons in antiferromagnetic insulators couple strongly to conduction electrons in adjacent metals. We show that this interfacial tie can lead to superconductivity in a tri-layer consisting of a metal sandwiched between two antiferromagnetic insulators. The critical temperature is closely related to the magnon gap, which can be in the THz range. We estimate the critical temperature in MnF$_2$-Au-MnF$_2$ to be on the order of 1 K. The Umklapp scattering at metal-antiferromagnet interfaces leads to a d-wave superconductive pairing, in contrast to the p-wave superconductivity mediated by magnons in ferromagnets., 8 pages, 6 figures

We consider a magnetic insulator in contact with a normal metal. We derive a self-consistent Keldysh effective action for the magnon gas that contains the effects of magnon-magnon interactions and contact with the metal to lowest order. Self-consistent expressions for the dispersion relation, temperature and chemical potential for magnons are derived. Based on this effective action, we study instabilities of the magnon gas that arise due to spin-current flowing across the interface between the normal metal and the magnetic insulator. We find that the stability phase diagram is modified by an interference between magnon-magnon interactions and interfacial magnon-electron coupling. These effects persist at low temperatures and for thin magnetic insulators., 10 pages and 5 figures

We investigate the finite-size scaling of the boundary quantum geometric tensor (QGT) numerically close to the Anderson localization transition in the presence of small external magnetic fields. The QGT exhibits universal scaling and reveals the crossover between the orthogonal and unitary critical states in weak random magnetic fields. The flow of the QGT near the critical points determines the critical exponents. Critical distributions of the QGT are universal and exhibit a remarkable isotropy even in a homogeneous magnetic field. We predict universal and isotropic Hall conductance fluctuations at the metal-insulator transition in an external magnetic field., 5 + 5 pages, 6 figures

Spin valves form a key building block in a wide range of spintronic concepts and devices from magnetoresistive read heads to spin-transfer-torque oscillators. We elucidate the dependence of the magnetic damping in the free layer on the angle its equilibrium magnetization makes with that in the fixed layer. The spin pumping-mediated damping is anisotropic and tensorial, with Gilbert- and Bloch-like terms. Our investigation reveals a mechanism for tuning the free layer damping in situ from negligible to a large value via the orientation of fixed layer magnetization, especially when the magnets are electrically insulating. Furthermore, we expect the Bloch contribution that emerges from the longitudinal spin accumulation in the nonmagnetic spacer to play an important role in a wide range of other phenomena in spin valves. © American Physical Society 2019.

We investigate theoretically magnon-mediated superconductivity in a heterostructure consisting of a normal metal and a two-sublattice antiferromagnetic insulator. The attractive electron-electron pairing interaction is caused by an interfacial exchange coupling with magnons residing in the antiferromagnet, resulting in p-wave, spin-triplet superconductivity in the normal metal. Our main finding is that one may significantly enhance the superconducting critical temperature by coupling the normal metal to only one of the two antiferromagnetic sublattices employing, for example, an uncompensated interface. Employing realistic material parameters, the critical temperature increases from vanishingly small values to values significantly larger than 1 K as the interfacial coupling becomes strongly sublattice-asymmetric. We provide a general physical picture of this enhancement mechanism based on the notion of squeezed bosonic eigenmodes., 15 pages, 4 figures

We show how a charge current through a single antiferromagnetic layer can excite and control self-oscillations. Sustained oscillations with tunable amplitudes and frequencies are possible in a variety of geometries using certain classes of non-centrosymmetric materials that exhibit finite dissipative spin-orbit torque. We compute the steady-state phase diagram as a function of the current and spin-orbit torque magnitude. The anisotropic magnetoresistance causes the conversion of the resulting AF oscillations to a terahertz AC output voltage. These findings provide an attractive and novel route to design terahertz antiferromagnetic spin-orbit torque oscillators in simple single-layer structures., 5 pages, 3 figures and a supplemental material

Antiferromagnets and compensated ferrimagnets offer opportunities to investigate spin dynamics in the 'terahertz gap' because their resonance modes lie in the 0.3 THz to 3 THz range. Despite some inherent advantages when compared to ferromagnets, these materials have not been extensively studied due to difficulties in exciting and detecting the high-frequency spin dynamics, especially in thin films. Here we show that spin-obit torque in a single layer of the highly spin-polarized compensated ferrimagnet Mn2RuxGa is remarkably efficient at generating spin-orbit fields \mu_0H_eff, which approach 0.1x10-10 T m2/A in the low-current density limit -- almost a thousand times the Oersted field, and one to two orders of magnitude greater than the effective fields in heavy metal/ferromagnet bilayers. From an analysis of the harmonic Hall effect which takes account of the thermal contributions from the anomalous Nernst effect, we show that the antidamping component of the spin-orbit torque is sufficient to sustain self-oscillation. Our study demonstrates that spin electronics has the potential to underpin energy-frugal, chip-based solutions to the problem of ultra high-speed information transfer.

Light enables ultrafast, direct and nonthermal control of the exchange and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions. We consider two-dimensional honeycomb lattices described by the Kane-Mele-Hubbard model at half filling and in the strongly correlated limit, i.e., the Mott insulator phase of a canted antiferromagnet. Based on Floquet theory, we demonstrate that by changing the amplitude and frequency of polarized laser pulses, one can tune the amplitudes and signs of and even the ratio between the exchange and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya spin interactions. Furthermore, the renormalizations of the spin interactions are independent of helicity. Our results pave the way for ultrafast optical spin manipulation in recently discovered two-dimensional magnetic materials., Comment: 5.5 pages, 2 figures