Chiral Phonon Transport Induced by Topological Magnons

The plethora of recent discoveries in the field of topological electronic insulators has inspired a search for boson systems with similar properties. There are predictions that ferromagnets on a two-dimensional honeycomb lattice may host chiral edge magnons. In such systems, we theoretically study how magnons and phonons couple. We find topological magneto-polarons around the avoided crossings between phonons and topological magnons. Exploiting this feature along with our finding of Rayleigh edge phonons in armchair ribbons, we demonstrate the existence of chiral edge modes with a phononic character. We predict that these modes mediate a chirality in the coherent phonon response and suggest to measure this effect via elastic transducers. These findings reveal a possible approach towards heat management in future devices.Comment: Published version. 11 pages, 11 figures, including Supplementary Materia

Phonon-mediated superconductivity in doped monolayer materials

Insight into why superconductivity in pristine and doped monolayer graphene seems strongly suppressed has been central for the recent years' various creative approaches to realize superconductivity in graphene and graphene-like systems. We provide further insight by studying electron-phonon coupling and superconductivity in doped monolayer graphene and hexagonal boron nitride based on intrinsic phonon modes. Solving the graphene gap equation using a detailed model for the effective attraction based on electron tight binding and phonon force constant models, the various system parameters can be tuned at will. Consistent with results in the literature, we find slight gap modulations along the Fermi surface, and the high energy phonon modes are shown to be the most significant for the superconductivity instability. The Coulomb interaction plays a major role in suppressing superconductivity at realistic dopings. Motivated by the direct onset of a large density of states at the Fermi surface for small charge dopings in hexagonal boron nitride, we also calculate the dimensionless electron-phonon coupling strength there, but the comparatively large density of states cannot immediately be capitalized on, and the charge doping necessary to obtain significant electron-phonon coupling is similar to the value in graphene

Dissipative Spin-wave Diode and Nonreciprocal Magnonic Amplifier

We propose an experimentally feasible dissipative spin-wave diode comprising two magnetic layers coupled via a non-magnetic spacer. We theoretically demonstrate that the spacer mediates not only coherent interactions but also dissipative coupling. Interestingly, an appropriately engineered dissipation engenders a nonreciprocal device response, facilitating the realization of a spin-wave diode. This diode permits wave propagation in one direction alone, given that the coherent Dzyaloshinskii- Moriya (DM) interaction is balanced with the dissipative coupling. The polarity of the diode is determined by the sign of the DM interaction. Furthermore, we show that when the magnetic layers undergo incoherent pumping, the device operates as a unidirectional spin-wave amplifier. The amplifier gain is augmented by cascading multiple magnetic bilayers. By extending our model to a one-dimensional ring structure, we establish a connection between the physics of spin-wave amplification and non-Hermitian topology. Our proposal opens up a new avenue for harnessing inherent dissipation in spintronic applications.Comment: 13 pages including supplemental material; 4 figure

Antiferromagnetic magnons as highly squeezed Fock states underlying quantum correlations

Employing the concept of two-mode squeezed states from quantum optics, we demonstrate a revealing physical picture for the antiferromagnetic ground state and excitations. Superimposed on a N{\'e}el ordered configuration, a spin-flip restricted to one of the sublattices is called a sublattice-magnon. We show that an antiferromagnetic spin-up magnon is comprised by a quantum superposition of states with $n+1$ spin-up and $n$ spin-down sublattice-magnons, and is thus an enormous excitation despite its unit net spin. Consequently, its large sublattice-spin can amplify its coupling to other excitations. Employing von Neumann entropy as a measure, we show that the antiferromagnetic eigenmodes manifest a high degree of entanglement between the two sublattices, thereby establishing antiferromagnets as reservoirs for strong quantum correlations. Based on these novel insights, we outline strategies for exploiting the strong quantum character of antiferromagetic (squeezed-)magnons and give an intuitive explanation for recent experimental and theoretical findings in antiferromagnetic magnon spintronics

Two-Component Spin-Orbit Coupled Ultracold Atoms in the Weak and Strong Coupling Regimes

Motivated by recent experimental advances, we study two-component spin-orbit coupled ultracold bosonic atoms in two dimensions on a square optical lattice. Using a Bose-Hubbard model with spin-conserving and non-spin-conserving nearest neighbour hoppings and spin-dependent on-site density-density interaction, our goal is to characterize phase separation and spin structure in the weakly interacting and deep Mott regimes. For the weakly coupled regime, we decouple interactions through a real space uniform density mean field theory. At zero temperature, this gives an analytic condition for the phase separation transition driven by inter- relative to intracomponent interaction. Solving the self-consistent equations at finite temperature reveals entropic remixing in the phase separated regime and a more surprising entropy driven phase separation in the mixed regime. This is a consequence of complex interplay between interaction and spin-orbit coupling, and can be explained through the effect of component imbalance on the effective single-particle dispersion relation. We also provide an alternate explanation based on thermal occupation of eigenstates with a characteristic imbalance. In the strongly interacting Mott regime, we derive an effective spin Hamiltonian describing the magnetic phases of the Mott insulator. The competition between anisotropic {Heisenberg} and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions gives rise to various ferromagnetic, antiferromagnetic, spiral, stripe, vortex, and skyrmion phases. On basis of classical Monte-Carlo simulations in the literature, we reconstruct the phase diagram with a classical variational approach, while magnon excitation spectra and quantum fluctuations are calculated with Holstein-Primakoff transformation and subsequent spin wave expansion. The analysis shows that states with ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic ordering of boson species are protected against thermal fluctuations by a gap, and well described by classical states. States with equal superposition of boson species at each lattice site are subject to relatively large quantum fluctuations, which may cause breakdown of the states within their classical parameter space regions. The dispersion relations are gapless and linear around the minima to lowest order in the spin wave expansion

Collective effects in low-dimensional systems with coupled quasiparticles

Many of the most fascinating and challenging phenomena in condensed matter physics occur in systems with coupling between quasiparticles of different nature. This thesis is concerned with the study of collective effects which may occur due to coupling between electrons, magnons, and phonons in various two-dimensional systems, and is based on four research papers. In the first paper, we examine a spin model analog of the Haldane model which has a topologically non-trivial magnon band structure. We discuss the effect of coupling the topological magnons to phonons, and suggest signatures both in the transverse magnon spin Hall conductivity and through exotic magnon-polaron edge states. In the second paper, we use a tight binding approach to model electronphonon coupling in graphene, and study possible phonon-mediated superconductivity in doped graphene using a detailed model for the effective phononmediated electron-electron interaction. In the third paper, we provide a revealing physical picture for the eigenexcitations of the quantum antiferromagnet, and discuss the implications of this in various physical settings. Amongst others, we emphasize that coupling asymmetrically to the two sublattices of the antiferromagnet through an uncompensated interface may enhance the effective coupling strength to the antiferromagnetic magnons. In the fourth paper, we discuss superconductivity mediated by antiferromagnetic magnons in a heterostructure of a normal metal coupled to antiferromagnetic insulators. We find that sublattice coupling asymmetry plays an important role in determining the pairing symmetry of the superconducting phase. Using Eliashberg theory instead of BCS theory, we furthermore demonstrate the importance of a proper treatment of the frequency dependence of the effective pairing interaction for magnon-mediated superconductivity

Eliashberg study of superconductivity induced by interfacial coupling to antiferromagnets

We perform Eliashberg calculations for magnon-mediated superconductivity in a normal metal, where the electron-magnon interaction arises from interfacial coupling to antiferromagnetic insulators. In agreement with previous studies, we find p-wave pairing for large doping when the antiferromagnetic interfaces are uncompensated and d-wave pairing close to half filling when the antiferromagnetic interfaces are compensated. However, for the p-wave phase, we find a considerable reduction in the critical temperature compared to previous weak-coupling results, as the effective frequency cutoff on the magnon propagator in this case is found to be much smaller than the cutoff on the magnon spectrum. The d-wave phase, on the other hand, relies less on long-wavelength magnons, leading to a larger effective cutoff on the magnon propagator. Combined with a large density of states close to half filling, this might allow the d-wave phase to survive up to higher critical temperatures. Based on our findings, we provide insight into how to realize interfacially induced magnon-mediated superconductivity in experiments

Antiferromagnetic Magnons as Highly Squeezed Fock States underlying Quantum Correlations

Employing the concept of two-mode squeezed states from quantum optics, we demonstrate a revealing physical picture for the antiferromagnetic ground state and excitations. Superimposed on a N\'eel ordered configuration, a spin-flip restricted to one of the sublattices is called a sublattice-magnon. We show that an antiferromagnetic spin-up magnon is comprised by a quantum superposition of states with $n+1$ spin-up and $n$ spin-down sublattice-magnons, and is thus an enormous excitation despite its unit net spin. Consequently, its large sublattice-spin can amplify its coupling to other excitations. Employing von Neumann entropy as a measure, we show that the antiferromagnetic eigenmodes manifest a high degree of entanglement between the two sublattices, thereby establishing antiferromagnets as reservoirs for strong quantum correlations. Based on these novel insights, we outline strategies for exploiting the strong quantum character of antiferromagetic (squeezed-)magnons.publishe

Antiferromagnetic magnons as highly squeezed Fock states underlying quantum correlations

Employing the concept of two-mode squeezed states from quantum optics, we demonstrate a revealing physical picture for the antiferromagnetic ground state and excitations. Superimposed on a Néel ordered configuration, a spin-flip restricted to one of the sublattices is called a sublattice magnon. We show that an antiferromagnetic spin-up magnon is composed of a quantum superposition of states with n+1 spin-up and n spin-down sublattice magnons and is thus an enormous excitation despite its unit net spin. Consequently, its large sublattice spin can amplify its coupling to other excitations. Employing von Neumann entropy as a measure, we show that the antiferromagnetic eigenmodes manifest a high degree of entanglement between the two sublattices, thereby establishing antiferromagnets as reservoirs for strong quantum correlations. Based on these insights, we outline strategies for exploiting the strong quantum character of antiferromagnetic (squeezed) magnons and give an intuitive explanation for recent experimental and theoretical findings in antiferromagnetic magnon spintronics