arXiv subjects

Tongyang Guan

Publications and source records attributed to Tongyang Guan.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Disentangling Spin and Orbital Contributions in the Search for Altermagnetic Terahertz Conversion in RuO2

Rutile RuO2 has emerged as a prominent candidate altermagnet, yet the microscopic origin of its reported charge-angular-momentum conversion remains unsettled. Recent theoretical and experimental advances have highlighted a potentially dominant role of orbital transport, raising a fundamental ambiguity between spin- and orbital-mediated conversion in RuO2. Here, we report the first experimental disentanglement of the spin- and orbital-to-charge conversion channels in RuO2 heterostructures using terahertz emission spectroscopy. We identify Fe as a predominantly spin-current injector, whereas Ni and permalloy predominantly inject orbital currents, revealing a substantial orbital contribution to ultrafast terahertz emission. Under controlled spin-current injection, we find no evidence for inverse altermagnetic spin-splitting effect. Instead, the observed anisotropy is consistent with an anisotropic inverse spin Hall response that is strongly conditioned by the near-interface environment. Under orbital-current injection, the anisotropy is markedly weaker, indicating that orbital-to-charge conversion is largely isotropic in RuO2. Our results establish orbital transport and interface-conditioned spin Hall conversion as key to terahertz emission from RuO2, underscoring the need to disentangle spin, orbital, and interfacial contributions before assigning anisotropy to altermagnetism.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2026

Quantifying Ultrafast Orbital Pumping and Nanometre-Scale Orbital Diffusion in Magnetic Heterostructures

Quantifying ultrafast orbital pumping and transport remains challenging because spin and orbital currents contribute coherently to terahertz emission. Here, we combine spintronic terahertz emission spectroscopy with wedge-sample thickness control to disentangle these contributions in Fe, Co and Ni heterostructures with Ta, W and Nb. Their opposite spin Hall and orbital Hall polarities enable quantitative determination of relative pumping strengths and propagation lengths. We find that orbital pumping increases from Fe to Ni, with inferred orbital-to-spin current ratios reaching several tens of percent in Ni, exceeding current microscopic predictions. Remarkably, Nb exhibits an orbital diffusion length of ~1.5 nm, substantially longer than in Ta and W and beyond the sub-nanometre scale predicted by recent orbital-relaxation calculations. These findings provide quantitative experimental benchmarks for ultrafast orbital pumping and transport.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2026

Evidence of Ultrashort Orbital Transport in Heavy Metals Revealed by Terahertz Emission Spectroscopy

The orbital angular momentum of electrons offers a promising, yet largely unexplored, degree of freedom for ultrafast, energy-efficient information processing. As the foundation of orbitronics, understanding how orbital currents propagate and convert into charge currents is essential - but remains elusive due to the challenge in disentangling orbital and spin dynamics in ultrathin films. Although orbital currents have been predicted to propagate over long distances in materials, recent theoretical studies argue that lattice symmetry may constrain their mean free paths (MFPs) to the scale of a single atomic layer. In this work, we provide the first direct experimental evidence for ultrashort orbital MFPs in heavy metals (HMs) - W, Ta, Pt - revealed by femtosecond terahertz emission spectroscopy. This is enabled by sub-nanometer-precision control of thin-film thickness using wedge-shaped HM|Ni heterostructures. By employing a multi-component terahertz-emission model, we quantitatively extract the orbital MFPs, consistently finding them shorter than their spin counterparts. Furthermore, control experiments rule out interfacial orbital-to-charge conversion as the dominant mechanism, confirming that the process is governed by the bulk inverse orbital Hall effect. Our findings resolve a central controversy in orbitronics and provide key insights into orbital transport and conversion mechanisms.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2023

Flexible generation of structured terahertz fields via programmable exchange-biased spintronic emitters

Structured light, particularly in the terahertz frequency range, holds considerable potential for a diverse range of applications. However, the generation and control of structured terahertz radiation pose major challenges. In this work, we demonstrate a novel programmable spintronic emitter that can flexibly generate a variety of structured terahertz waves. This is achieved through the precise and high-resolution programming of the magnetization pattern on the emitter surface, utilizing laser-assisted local field cooling of an exchange-biased ferromagnetic heterostructure. Moreover, we outline a generic design strategy for realizing specific complex structured terahertz fields in the far field. Our device successfully demonstrates the generation of terahertz waves with diverse structured polarization states, including spatially separated circular polarizations, azimuthal or radial polarization states, and a full Poincare beam. This innovation opens a new avenue for designing and generating structured terahertz radiations, with potential applications in terahertz microscopy, communication, quantum information, and light-matter interactions.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2023

Nonrelativistic and nonmagnetic control of terahertz charge currents via electrical anisotropy in RuO2 and IrO2

Precise and ultrafast control over photo-induced charge currents across nanoscale interfaces could lead to important applications in energy harvesting, ultrafast electronics, and coherent terahertz sources. Recent studies have shown that several relativistic mechanisms, including inverse spin-Hall effect, inverse Rashba-Edelstein effect and inverse spin-orbit-torque effect, can convert longitudinally injected spin-polarized currents from magnetic materials to transverse charge currents, thereby harnessing these currents for terahertz generation. However, these mechanisms typically require external magnetic fields and suffer from low spin-polarization rates and low efficiencies of relativistic spin-to-charge conversion. In this work, we present a novel nonrelativistic and nonmagnetic mechanism that directly utilizes the photo-excited high-density charge currents across the interface. We demonstrate that the electrical anisotropy of conductive oxides RuO2 and IrO2 can effectively deflect injected charge currents to the transverse direction, resulting in efficient and broadband terahertz radiation. Importantly, this new mechanism has the potential to offer much higher conversion efficiency compared to previous methods, as conductive materials with large electrical anisotropy are readily available, whereas further increasing the spin-Hall angle of heavy-metal materials would be challenging. Our new findings offer exciting possibilities for directly utilizing these photo-excited high-density currents across metallic interfaces for ultrafast electronics and terahertz spectroscopy.

physics.optics↗