SciPost Physics

SciPost Phys. 9, 061 (2020) · published 30 October 2020

• doi: 10.21468/SciPostPhys.9.4.061
• pdf
• BiBTeX
• RIS
• Submissions/Reports
• 

Abstract

Driving a two-dimensional Mott insulator with circularly polarized light breaks time-reversal and inversion symmetry, which induces an optically-tunable synthetic scalar spin chirality interaction in the effective low-energy spin Hamiltonian. Here, we show that this mechanism can stabilize topological magnon excitations in honeycomb ferromagnets and in optical lattices. We find that the irradiated quantum magnet is described by a Haldane model for magnons that hosts topologically-protected edge modes. We study the evolution of the magnon spectrum in the Floquet regime and via time propagation of the magnon Hamiltonian for a slowly varying pulse envelope. Compared to similar but conceptually distinct driving schemes based on the Aharanov-Casher effect, the dimensionless light-matter coupling parameter $\lambda = eEa/\hbar\omega$ at fixed electric field strength is enhanced by a factor $\sim 10^5$. This increase of the coupling parameter allows to induce a topological gap of the order of $\Delta \approx 2$ meV with realistic laser pulses, bringing an experimental realization of light-induced topological magnon edge states within reach.

• Ono et al., Photocontrol of spin scalar chirality in centrosymmetric itinerant magnets
  Phys. Rev. B 108, L100407 (2023) [Crossref]
• Curtis et al., Cavity magnon-polaritons in cuprate parent compounds
  Phys. Rev. Research 4, 013101 (2022) [Crossref]
• Henriques et al., Laser induced enhanced coupling between photons and squeezed magnons in antiferromagnets
  J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 34, 245802 (2022) [Crossref]
• Ojeda Collado et al., Equilibrium Parametric Amplification in Raman-Cavity Hybrids
  Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 116901 (2024) [Crossref]
• Rana et al., Applications of nanomagnets as dynamical systems: II
  Nanotechnology 33, 082002 (2022) [Crossref]
• Wang et al., Observation of Spin-Wave Moiré Edge and Cavity Modes in Twisted Magnetic Lattices
  Phys. Rev. X 13, 021016 (2023) [Crossref]
• Chono et al., Laser-induced topological s -wave superconductivity in bilayer transition metal dichalcogenides
  Phys. Rev. B 102, 174508 (2020) [Crossref]
• Mook et al., Interaction-Stabilized Topological Magnon Insulator in Ferromagnets
  Phys. Rev. X 11, 021061 (2021) [Crossref]
• Juraschek et al., Sum-frequency excitation of coherent magnons
  Phys. Rev. B 103, 094407 (2021) [Crossref]
• Boström et al., All-optical generation of antiferromagnetic magnon currents via the magnon circular photogalvanic effect
  Phys. Rev. B 104, L100404 (2021) [Crossref]
• Bhowmick et al., Twisted superfluid and supersolid phases of triplons in bilayer honeycomb magnets
  Phys. Rev. B 104, 064447 (2021) [Crossref]
• Tuovinen et al., Electronic transport in molecular junctions: The generalized Kadanoff–Baym ansatz with initial contact and correlations
  154, 094104 (2021) [Crossref]
• Sur et al., Driven Hubbard model on a triangular lattice: Tunable Heisenberg antiferromagnet with a chiral three-spin term
  Phys. Rev. B 105, 054423 (2022) [Crossref]
• Antão et al., Strain engineering of photoinduced topological phases in two-dimensional ferromagnets
  Phys. Rev. B 107, 235410 (2023) [Crossref]
• Vidal-Silva et al., Time-dependent strain-tuned topological magnon phase transition
  Phys. Rev. B 106, 224401 (2022) [Crossref]
• Viñas Boström et al., Direct Optical Probe of Magnon Topology in Two-Dimensional Quantum Magnets
  Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 026701 (2023) [Crossref]
• Wang et al., Topological Floquet engineering using two frequencies in two dimensions
  Phys. Rev. A 107, 043309 (2023) [Crossref]
• Afanasiev et al., Controlling the anisotropy of a van der Waals antiferromagnet with light
  Sci. Adv. 7, eabf3096 (2021) [Crossref]
• Viñas Boström et al., Microscopic theory of light-induced ultrafast skyrmion excitation in transition metal films
  npj Comput Mater 8, 62 (2022) [Crossref]