arXiv subjects

Arne Brataas

Publications and source records attributed to Arne Brataas.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

Electrical detection of the spin-flop and room-temperature magnetic ordering in van der Waals CrPS$_{4}$/(Pt, Pd) heterostructures

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$_{4}$.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2021

Magnon spin current induced by triplet Cooper pair supercurrents

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.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Strong bulk spin-orbit torques quantified in the van der Waals ferromagnet Fe3GeTe2

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.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2021

Electrically controlled crossed Andreev reflection in two-dimensional antiferromagnets

We report 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.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2021

Detection of Topological Spin Textures via Non-Linear Magnetic Responses

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.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2021

Long-distance spin-transport across the Morin phase transition up to room temperature in ultra-low damping single crystals of the antiferromagnet α-Fe2O3

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.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Controlling the RKKY interaction and heat transport in a Kitaev spin liquid via $Z_2$ flux walls

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.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2021

Propagation length of antiferromagnetic magnons governed by domain configurations

The compensated magnetic order and characteristic, terahertz frequencies of antiferromagnetic materials makes them promising candidates to develop a new class of robust, ultra-fast spintronic devices. The manipulation of antiferromagnetic spin-waves in thin films is anticipated to lead to new exotic phenomena such as spin-superfluidity, requiring an efficient propagation of spin-waves in thin films. However, the reported decay length in thin films has so far been limited to a few nanometers. In this work, we achieve efficient spin-wave propagation, over micrometer distances, in thin films of the insulating antiferromagnet hematite with large magnetic domains whilst evidencing much shorter attenuation lengths in multidomain thin films. Through transport and magnetic imaging, we conclude on the role of the magnetic domain structure and spin-wave scattering at domain walls to govern the transport. We manipulate the spin transport by tailoring the domain configuration through field cycle training. For the appropriate crystalline orientation, zero-field spin-transport is achieved across micrometers, as required for device integration.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2021

Spin pumping between noncollinear ferromagnetic insulators through thin superconductors

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.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2020

Identifying the origin of the non-monotonic thickness dependence of spin-orbit torques and interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction in a ferrimagnetic insulator heterostructure

Electrical manipulation of magnetism via spin-orbit torques (SOTs) promises efficient spintronic devices. In systems comprising magnetic insulators and heavy metals, SOTs have started to be investigated only recently, especially in systems with interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (iDMI). Here, we quantitatively study the SOT efficiency and iDMI in a series of gadolinium gallium garnet (GGG) / thulium iron garnet (TmIG) / platinum (Pt) heterostructures with varying TmIG and Pt thicknesses. We find that the non-monotonic SOT efficiency as a function of the magnetic layer thickness is not consistent with the 1/thickness dependence expected from a simple interfacial SOT mechanism. Moreover, considering the insulating nature of TmIG, our results cannot be explained by the SOT mechanism established for metallic magnets where the transverse charge spin current can inject and dephase in the magnetic layers. Rather we can explain this non-monotonic behavior by a model based on the interfacial spin mixing conductance that is affected by the thickness-dependent exchange splitting energy by determining the phase difference of the reflected spin-up and spin-down electrons at the TmIG / Pt interface. By studying the Pt thickness dependence, we find that the effective DMI for GGG / TmIG / Pt does not depend on the Pt thickness, which indicates that the GGG / TmIG interface is the source of the iDMI in this system. Our work demonstrates that SOT and DMI can originate from two different interfaces, which enables independent optimization of DMI and SOT for advanced chiral spintronics with low damping magnetic insulators.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2020

Cross-sublattice Spin Pumping and Magnon Level Attraction in van der Waals Antiferromagnets

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.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Bosonic Bott Index and Disorder-Induced Topological Transitions of Magnons

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.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Macroscale non-local transfer of superconducting signatures to a ferromagnet in a cavity

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.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Spin Insulatronics

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.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Electrical and Thermal Transport in Antiferromagnet-Superconductor Junctions

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 presence of two new 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 conductance depend nontrivially on antiferromagnetic exchange strength. Furthermore, we show that the interplay between the Néel 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.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2020

Theory of Domain-Wall Magnetoresistance in Metallic Antiferromagnets

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.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Observation of magnon-polarons in a uniaxial antiferromagnetic insulator

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 Cr2O3. 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.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2020

Magnon-squeezing as a niche of quantum magnonics

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.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗