Nonreciprocal directional dichroism of a chiral magnet in the visible range
Source abstract
Abstract
Abstract Nonreciprocal directional dichroism is an unusual light–matter interaction that gives rise to diode-like behavior in low-symmetry materials. The chiral varieties are particularly scarce due to the requirements for strong spin–orbit coupling, broken time-reversal symmetry, and a chiral axis. Here we bring together magneto-optical spectroscopy and first-principles calculations to reveal high-energy, broadband nonreciprocal directional dichroism in Ni3TeO6 with special focus on behavior in the metamagnetic phase above 52 T. In addition to demonstrating this effect in the magnetochiral configuration, we explore the transverse magnetochiral orientation in which applied field and light propagation are orthogonal to the chiral axis and, by so doing, uncover an additional configuration with a unique nonreciprocal response in the visible part of the spectrum. In a significant conceptual advance, we use first-principles methods to analyze how the Ni2+d-to-d on-site excitations develop magneto-electric character and present a microscopic model that unlocks the door to theory-driven discovery of chiral magnets with nonreciprocal properties.
Source: crossref · Quality: baseline
Research context
OpenAlex topics: Multiferroics and related materials · Magnetic properties of thin films · Advanced Condensed Matter Physics
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
References (53)
Show source-provided references
1. Kézsmárki, I. et al. One-way transparency of four-coloured spin-wave excitations in multiferroic materials. Nat. Commun. 5, 3203 (2014).10.1038/ncomms4203 ↗
2. Tokura, Y. & Nagaosa, N. Nonreciprocal responses from non-centrosymmetric quantum materials. Nat. Commun. 9, 3740 (2018).10.1038/s41467-018-05759-4 ↗
3. Cheong, S.-W., Talbayev, D., Kiryukhin, V. & Saxena, A. Broken symmetries, non-reciprocity, and multiferroicity. npj Quantum Mater. 3, 19 (2018).
4. Qin, F. et al. Superconductivity in a chiral nanotube. Nat. Commun. 8, 14465 (2017).
5. Krstić, V. et al. Magneto-chiral anisotropy in charge transport through single-walled carbon nanotubes. J. Chem. Phys. 117, 11315–11319 (2002).10.1063/1.1523895 ↗
6. Aoki, R., Kousaka, Y. & Togawa, Y. Anomalous nonreciprocal electrical transport on chiral magnetic order. Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 057206 (2019).10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.057206 ↗
7. Kwon, J. H. Giant nonreciprocal emission of spin waves in Ta/Py bilayers. Sci. Adv. 2, e1501892 (2016).10.1126/sciadv.1501892 ↗
8. Stock, C. et al. Spin-wave directional anisotropies in antiferromagnetic Ba3NbFe3Si2O14. Phys. Rev. B 100, 134429 (2019).10.1103/PhysRevB.100.134429 ↗
9. Nomura, T. et al. Phonon magnetochiral effect. Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 145901 (2019).10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.145901 ↗
10. Kravchuk, V. P., Rößler, U. K., van den Brink, J. and Garst, M. Solitary wave excitations of skyrmion strings in chiral magnets. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.01420 (2019).10.1103/PhysRevB.102.220408 ↗
11. Szaller, D., Bordács, S. & Kézsmárki, I. Symmetry conditions for nonreciprocal light propagation in magnetic crystals. Phys. Rev. B 87, 014421 (2013).10.1103/PhysRevB.87.014421 ↗
12. Kézsmárki, I. et al. Enhanced directional dichroism of terahertz light in resonance with magnetic excitations of the multiferroic Ba2CoGe2O7 oxide compound. Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 057403 (2011).10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.057403 ↗
13. Bordács, S. et al. Unidirectional terahertz light absorption in the pyroelectric ferrimagnet CaBaCo4 O7. Phys. Rev. B 92, 214441 (2015).10.1103/PhysRevB.92.214441 ↗
14. Rikken, G. L. J. A., Strohm, C. & Wyder, P. Observation of magnetoelectric directional anisotropy. Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 133005 (2002).10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.133005 ↗
15. Bordács, S. et al. Chirality of matter shows up via spin excitations. Nat. Phys. 8, 734–738 (2012).10.1038/nphys2387 ↗
16. Saito, M., Taniguchi, K. & Arima, T.-h Gigantic optical magnetoelectric effect in CuB2O4. J. Phys. Soc. Jpn 77, 013705 (2008).10.1143/JPSJ.77.013705 ↗
17. Saito, M., Ishikawa, K., Taniguchi, K. & Arima, T. Magnetic control of crystal chirality and the existence of a large magneto-optical dichroism effect in CuB2O4. Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 117402 (2008).10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.117402 ↗
18. Rikken, G. L. J. A. & Raupach, E. Observation of magneto-chiral dichroism. Nature 390, 493–494 (1997).10.1038/37323 ↗
19. Sessoli, R. et al. Strong magneto-chiral dichroism in a paramagnetic molecular helix observed by hard X-rays. Nat. Phys. 11, 69–74 (2015).10.1038/nphys3152 ↗
20. Nakagawa, N. et al. Magneto-chiral dichroism of CsCuCl3. Phys. Rev. B 96, 121102 (2017). (R).10.1103/PhysRevB.96.121102 ↗
21. Train, C., Gruselle, M. & Verdaguer, M. The fruitful introduction of chirality and control of absolute configurations in molecular magnets. Chem. Soc. Rev. 40, 3297–3312 (2011).10.1039/c1cs15012j ↗
22. Barron, L. D. Chirality and magnetism shake hands. Nat. Mater. 7, 691–692 (2008).10.1038/nmat2263 ↗
23. Train, C. et al. Strong magneto-chiral dichroism in enantiopure chiral ferromagnets. Nat. Mater. 7, 729–734 (2008).10.1038/nmat2256 ↗
24. Sheu, Y. M. et al. Picosecond creation of switchable optomagnets from a polar antiferromagnet with giant photoinduced Kerr rotations. Phys. Rev. X 9, 031038 (2019).
25. Yu, S. et al. High-temperature terahertz optical diode effect without magnetic order in polar FeZnMo3 O8. Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 037601 (2018).10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.037601 ↗
26. SoljaČiĆ, M. & Joannopoulos, J. D. Enhancement of nonlinear effects using photonic crystals. Nat. Mater. 3, 211–219 (2004).10.1038/nmat1097 ↗
27. Yu, Z. & Fan, S. Complete optical isolation created by indirect interband photonic transitions. Nat. Phys. 3, 91–94 (2009).
28. Saito, M., Ishikawa, K., Taniguchi, K. & Arima, T.-h Magnetically controllable CuB2O4 phase retarder. Appl. Phys. Express 1, 121302 (2008).10.1143/APEX.1.121302 ↗
29. Kézsmárki, I. et al. Optical diode effect at spin-wave excitations of the room-temperature multiferroic BiFeO3. Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 127203 (2015).10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.127203 ↗
30. Lee, J. H., Kézsmárki, I. & Fishman, R. S. First-principles approach to the dynamic magnetoelectric couplings for the non-reciprocal directional dichroism in BiFeO3. New J. Phys. 18, 043025 (2016).10.1088/1367-2630/18/4/043025 ↗
31. Takahashi, Y. et al. Magnetoelectric resonance with electromagnons in a perovskite helimagnet. Nat. Phys. 8, 121–125 (2012).10.1038/nphys2161 ↗
32. Jung, J. H. et al. Optical magnetoelectric effect in the polar GaFeO3 ferrimagnet. Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 037403 (2004).10.1103/PhysRevLett.93.037403 ↗
33. Arima, T. Magneto-electric optics in non-centrosymmetric ferromagnets. Matter 20, 434211 (2008).
34. Toyoda, S. et al. One-way transparency of light in multiferroic CuB2O4. Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 267207 (2015).10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.267207 ↗
35. Saito, M., Ishikawa, K., Konno, S., Taniguchi, K. & Arima, T. Periodic rotation of magnetization in a non-centrosymmetric soft magnet induced by an electric field. Nat. Mater. 8, 634–638 (2009).10.1038/nmat2492 ↗
36. Oh, Y. S. et al. Non-hysteretic colossal magnetoelectricity in a collinear antiferromagnet. Nat. Commun. 5, 3201 (2014).
37. Kim, J. W. et al. Successive magnetic-field-induced transitions and colossal magnetoelectric effect in Ni3TeO6. Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 137201 (2015).10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.137201 ↗
38. Živkovć, I., Prša, K., Zaharki, O. & Berger, H. Ni3TeO6−a collinear antiferromagnet with ferromagnetic honeycomb planes. J. Phys. Condens. Matter 22, 056002 (2010).10.1088/0953-8984/22/5/056002 ↗
39. Wang, X., Huang, F.-T., Yang, J., Oh, Y. S. & Cheong, S.-W. Interlocked chiral/polar domain walls and large optical rotation in Ni3 TeO6. APL Mater. 3, 076105 (2015).10.1063/1.4927232 ↗
40. Yokosuk, M. O. et al. Magnetoelectric coupling through the spin flop transition in Ni3TeO6. Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 147402 (2016).10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.147402 ↗
41. Cheong, S.-W. SOS: symmetry-operational similarity. npj Quantum Mater. 4, 53 (2019).
42. Miyahara, S. & Furukawa, N. Nonreciprocal directional dichroism and toroidalmagnons in helical magnets. J. Phys. Soc. Jpn 81, 023712 (2012).10.1143/JPSJ.81.023712 ↗
43. Muthukumar, V. N., Valent, R. & Gros, C. Theory of nonreciprocal optical effects in antiferromagnets: the case of Cr2O3. Phys. Rev. B 54, 433–440 (1996).10.1103/PhysRevB.54.433 ↗
44. Hlinka, J. Eight types of symmetrically distinct vectorlike physical quantities. Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 165502 (2014).10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.165502 ↗
45. Szaller, D. et al. Effect of spin excitations with simultaneous magnetic- and electric-dipole character on the static magnetoelectric properties of multiferroic materials. Phys. Rev. B 89, 184419 (2014).10.1103/PhysRevB.89.184419 ↗
46. Blaha, P., Schwarz, K., Madsen, G. K. H., Kvasnicka, D. & Luitz, J. WIEN2k, An augmented plane wave + local orbitals program for calculating crystal properties (Karlheinz Schwarz, Techn. Universität Wien, Austria, 2001).
47. Ceperley, D. M. & Alder, B. J. Ground state of the electron gas by a stochastic method. Phys. Rev. Lett. 45, 566–569 (1980).10.1103/PhysRevLett.45.566 ↗
48. Haule, K. Structural predictions for correlated electron materials using the functional dynamical mean field theory approach. J. Phys. Soc. Jpn 87, 041005 (2018).10.7566/JPSJ.87.041005 ↗
49. Ambrosch-Draxl, C. & Sofo, J. O. Linear optical properties of solids within the full-potential linearized augmented planewave method. Comp. Phys. Commun. 175, 1–14 (2006).10.1016/j.cpc.2006.03.005 ↗
50. Marzari, N., Mostofi, A. A., Yates, J. R., Souza, I. & Vanderbilt, D. Maximally localized Wannier functions: theory and applications. Rev. Mod. Phys. 84, 1419–1475 (2012).10.1103/RevModPhys.84.1419 ↗
51. Weng, H., Ozaki, T. & Terakura, K. Revisiting magnetic coupling in transition-metal-benzene complexes with maximally localized Wannier functions. Phys. Rev. B 79, 235118 (2009).10.1103/PhysRevB.79.235118 ↗
52. Ozaki, T. Variationally optimized atomic orbitals for large-scale electronic structures. Phys. Rev. B 67, 155108 (2003).10.1103/PhysRevB.67.155108 ↗
53. Kim, H.-S., Yokosuk, M. O., Musfeldt, J. L., Haule, K. & Vanderbilt, D. unpublished.