journal article·2022-08-17Open access

Ultrafast laser-driven topological spin textures on a 2D magnet

Mara Strungaru, Mathias Augustin, Elton J. G. Santos

npj Computational Materials· Volume 8· Issue 1

Abstract

Abstract Ultrafast laser excitations provide an efficient and low-power consumption alternative since different magnetic properties and topological spin states can be triggered and manipulated at the femtosecond (fs) regime. However, it is largely unknown whether laser excitations already used in data information platforms can manipulate the magnetic properties of recently discovered two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdW) materials. Here we show that ultrashort laser pulses (30−85 fs) can not only manipulate magnetic domains of 2D-XY CrCl 3 ferromagnets, but also induce the formation and control of topological nontrivial meron and antimeron spin textures. We observed that these spin quasiparticles are created within ~100 ps after the excitation displaying rich dynamics through motion, collision and annihilation with emission of spin waves throughout the surface. Our findings highlight substantial opportunities of using photonic driving forces for the exploration of spin textures on 2D magnetic materials towards magneto-optical topological applications.
Source: crossref · Quality: baseline

Research context

OpenAlex topics: 2D Materials and Applications · Topological Materials and Phenomena · Magnetic properties of thin films

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

References (46)

Show source-provided references
1. Novoselov, K. S. et al. A roadmap for graphene. Nature 490, 192–200 (2012).10.1038/nature11458 ↗
2. Gong, C. et al. Discovery of intrinsic ferromagnetism in two-dimensional van der Waals crystals. Nature 456, 265–269 (2017).10.1038/nature22060 ↗
3. Huang, B. et al. Layer-dependent ferromagnetism in a van der waals crystal down to the monolayer limit. Nature 546, 270–273 (2017).10.1038/nature22391 ↗
4. Lee, J.-U. et al. Ising-type magnetic ordering in atomically thin FePS3. Nano Lett. 16, 7433–7438 (2016).10.1021/acs.nanolett.6b03052 ↗
5. Lee, S., Choi, K.-Y., Lee, S., Park, B. H. & Park, J.-G. Tunneling transport of mono- and few-layers magnetic van der Waals MnPS3. APL Mater. 4, 86108 (2016).10.1063/1.4961211 ↗
6. Alliati, M., Evans, R. F. L., Novoselov, K. S. & Santos, E. J. G. Relativistic domain-wall dynamics in van der waals antiferromagnet MnPS3. npj Comput. Mater. 8, 3 (2022).10.1038/s41524-021-00683-6 ↗
7. Wang, Q. H. et al. The magnetic genome of two-dimensional van der waals materials. ACS Nano 16, 6960–7079 (2022).10.1021/acsnano.1c09150 ↗
8. Meseguer-Sánchez, J. et al. Coexistence of structural and magnetic phases in van der Waals magnet CrI3. Nat. Commun. 12, 6265 (2021).10.1038/s41467-021-26342-4 ↗
9. Xie, H. et al. Twist engineering of the two-dimensional magnetism in double bilayer chromium triiodide homostructures. Nat. Phys. 18, 30–36 (2022).10.1038/s41567-021-01408-8 ↗
10. Guguchia, Z. et al. Magnetism in semiconducting molybdenum dichalcogenides. Sci. Adv. 4, eaat3672 (2018).10.1126/sciadv.aat3672 ↗
11. Wahab, D. A. et al. Quantum rescaling, domain metastability, and hybrid domain-walls in 2d CrI3 magnets. Adv. Mater. 33, 2004138 (2021).10.1002/adma.202004138 ↗
12. Abdul-Wahab, D. et al. Domain wall dynamics in two-dimensional van der Waals ferromagnets. Appl. Phys. Rev. 8, 041411 (2021).10.1063/5.0062541 ↗
13. Cantos-Prieto, F. et al. Layer-dependent mechanical properties and enhanced plasticity in the van der waals chromium trihalide magnets. Nano Lett. 21, 3379–3385 (2021).10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c04794 ↗
14. Verzhbitskiy, I. A. et al. Controlling the magnetic anisotropy in Cr2Ge2Te6 by electrostatic gating. Nat. Electron. 3, 460–465 (2020).10.1038/s41928-020-0427-7 ↗
15. Berruto, G. et al. Laser-induced skyrmion writing and erasing in an ultrafast cryo-lorentz transmission electron microscope. Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 117201 (2018).10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.117201 ↗
16. Finazzi, M. et al. Laser-induced magnetic nanostructures with tunable topological properties. Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 177205 (2013).10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.177205 ↗
17. Kimel, A., Kirilyuk, A. & Rasing, T. Femtosecond opto-magnetism: ultrafast laser manipulation of magnetic materials. Laser Photonics Rev. 1, 275–287 (2007).10.1002/lpor.200710022 ↗
18. Bigot, J.-Y., Vomir, M. & Beaurepaire, E. Coherent ultrafast magnetism induced by femtosecond laser pulses. Nat. Phys. 5, 515–520 (2009).10.1038/nphys1285 ↗
19. Koopmans, B. et al. Explaining the paradoxical diversity of ultrafast laser-induced demagnetization. Nat. Mater. 9, 259–265 (2010).10.1038/nmat2593 ↗
20. Kimel, A., Kalashnikova, A., Pogrebna, A. & Zvezdin, A. Fundamentals and perspectives of ultrafast photoferroic recording. Phys. Rep. 852, 1–46 (2020).10.1016/j.physrep.2020.01.004 ↗
21. Beaurepaire, E., Merle, J.-C., Daunois, A. & Bigot, J.-Y. Ultrafast spin dynamics in ferromagnetic nickel. Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 4250–4253 (1996).10.1103/PhysRevLett.76.4250 ↗
22. Hansteen, F., Kimel, A., Kirilyuk, A. & Rasing, T. Femtosecond photomagnetic switching of spins in ferrimagnetic garnet films. Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 047402 (2005).10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.047402 ↗
23. Ostler, T. et al. Ultrafast heating as a sufficient stimulus for magnetization reversal in a ferrimagnet. Nat. Commun. 3, 1–6 (2012).10.1038/ncomms1666 ↗
24. Stanciu, C. D. et al. All-optical magnetic recording with circularly polarized light. Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 047601 (2007).10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.047601 ↗
25. Finazzi, M. et al. Laser-induced magnetic nanostructures with tunable topological properties. Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 1–5 (2013).10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.177205 ↗
26. Kapoor, L. N. et al. Observation of standing spin waves in a van der waals magnetic material. Adv. Mater. 33, 2005105 (2021).10.1002/adma.202005105 ↗
27. Cai, X. et al. Atomically thin CrCl3: An in-plane layered antiferromagnetic insulator. Nano Lett. 19, 3993–3998 (2019).10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b01317 ↗
28. Zhu, R. et al. Exchange bias in van der waals crcl3/fe3gete2 heterostructures. Nano Lett. 20, 5030–5035 (2020).10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c01149 ↗
29. Augustin, M., Jenkins, S., Evans, R. F. L., Novoselov, K. S. & Santos, E. J. G. Properties and dynamics of meron topological spin textures in the two-dimensional magnet CrCl3. Nat. Commun. 12, 185 (2021).10.1038/s41467-020-20497-2 ↗
30. Kartsev, A., Augustin, M., Evans, R. F., Novoselov, K. S. & Santos, E. J. Biquadratic exchange interactions in two-dimensional magnets. npj Comput. Mater. 6, 1–11 (2020).10.1038/s41524-020-00416-1 ↗
31. Macy, J. et al. Magnetic field-induced non-trivial electronic topology in Fe3−xGeTe2. Appl. Phys. Rev. 8, 041401 (2021).10.1063/5.0052952 ↗
32. Chen, J., Tzou, D. & Beraun, J. A semiclassical two-temperature model for ultrafast laser heating. Int. J. Heat. Mass Transf. 49, 307–316 (2006).10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2005.06.022 ↗
33. Padmanabhan, P. et al. Coherent helicity-dependent spin-phonon oscillations in the ferromagnetic van der waals crystal CrI3. Nat. Commun. 13, 4473 (2022).10.1038/s41467-022-31786-3 ↗
34. McGuire, M. A., Dixit, H., Cooper, V. R. & Sales, B. C. Coupling of crystal structure and magnetism in the layered, ferromagnetic insulator CrI3. Chem. Mater. 27, 612–620 (2015).10.1021/cm504242t ↗
35. Spurgeon, K., Kozlowski, G., Susner, M. A., Turgut, Z. & Boeckl, J. Temperature and magnetic field dependence of the specific heat of van der waals gapped ferromagnet CrI3. J. Electr. Eng. 5, 141–162 (2020).
36. Eriksson, F. On the measure of solid angles. Math. Mag. 63, 184–187 (1990).10.1080/0025570X.1990.11977515 ↗
37. Rózsa, L., Simon, E., Palotás, K., Udvardi, L. & Szunyogh, L. Complex magnetic phase diagram and skyrmion lifetime in an ultrathin film from atomistic simulations. Phys. Rev. B 93, 024417 (2016).10.1103/PhysRevB.93.024417 ↗
38. Senthil, T., Vishwanath, A., Balents, L., Sachdev, S. & Fisher, M. P. A. Deconfined quantum critical points. Science 303, 1490–1494 (2004).10.1126/science.1091806 ↗
39. Król, M. et al. Observation of second-order meron polarization textures in optical microcavities. Optica 8, 255–261 (2021).10.1364/OPTICA.414891 ↗
40. Kazantseva, N., Nowak, U., Chantrell, R. W., Hohlfeld, J. & Rebei, A. Slow recovery of the magnetisation after a sub-picosecond heat pulse. EPL 81, 27004 (2008).10.1209/0295-5075/81/27004 ↗
41. Barker, J. et al. Two-magnon bound state causes ultrafast thermally induced magnetisation switching. Sci. Rep. 3, 3262 (2013).10.1038/srep03262 ↗
42. Maiden, M. D., Bookman, L. D. & Hoefer, M. A. Attraction, merger, reflection, and annihilation in magnetic droplet soliton scattering. Phys. Rev. B 89, 180409 (2014).10.1103/PhysRevB.89.180409 ↗
43. Turgut, E. et al. Stoner versus heisenberg: Ultrafast exchange reduction and magnon generation during laser-induced demagnetization. Phys. Rev. B 94, 220408 (2016).10.1103/PhysRevB.94.220408 ↗
44. Zhang, S. L., van der Laan, G. & Hesjedal, T. Direct experimental determination of the topological winding number of skyrmions in cu2oseo3. Nat. Commun. 8, 14619 (2017).10.1038/ncomms14619 ↗
45. Cai, Q. et al. High thermal conductivity of high-quality monolayer boron nitride and its thermal expansion. Sci. Adv. 5, eaav0129 (2019).10.1126/sciadv.aav0129 ↗
46. Bedoya-Pinto, A. et al. Intrinsic 2d-xy ferromagnetism in a van der waals monolayer. Science 374, 616–620 (2021).10.1126/science.abd5146 ↗