Polarizing an antiferromagnet by optical engineering of the crystal field

Disa, A.; Fechner, M.; Nova, T. F.; Liu, B.; Foerst, M.; Prabhakaran, D.; Radaelli, P. G.; Cavalleri, A.

doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0936-3

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Polarizing an antiferromagnet by optical engineering of the crystal field

MPS-Authors

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Disa, A.
Quantum Condensed Matter Dynamics, Condensed Matter Dynamics Department, Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Max Planck Society;
The Hamburg Centre for Ultrafast Imaging;

/persons/resource/persons222262

Fechner, M.
Quantum Condensed Matter Dynamics, Condensed Matter Dynamics Department, Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons133847

Nova, T. F.
Quantum Condensed Matter Dynamics, Condensed Matter Dynamics Department, Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons196445

Liu, B.
Quantum Condensed Matter Dynamics, Condensed Matter Dynamics Department, Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons133775

Foerst, M.
Quantum Condensed Matter Dynamics, Condensed Matter Dynamics Department, Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons133811

Cavalleri, A.
Quantum Condensed Matter Dynamics, Condensed Matter Dynamics Department, Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Max Planck Society;
The Hamburg Centre for Ultrafast Imaging;
Clarendon Laboratory, Department of Physics, Oxford University;

External Resource

https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.00540
(Preprint)

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-0936-3
(Publisher version)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-020-0937-2
(Supplementary material)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-020-0977-7
(Supplementary material)

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2001.00540.pdf
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suppl.zip
(Supplementary material), 2MB

Citation

Disa, A., Fechner, M., Nova, T. F., Liu, B., Foerst, M., Prabhakaran, D., et al. (2020). Polarizing an antiferromagnet by optical engineering of the crystal field. Nature Physics, 16(9), 937-941. doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0936-3.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0005-6C0B-7

Abstract

Strain engineering is widely used to manipulate the electronic and magnetic properties of complex materials. For example, the piezomagnetic effect provides an attractive route to control magnetism with strain. In this effect, the staggered spin structure of an antiferromagnet is decompensated by breaking the crystal field symmetry, which induces a ferrimagnetic polarization. Piezomagnetism is especially appealing because, unlike magnetostriction, it couples strain and magnetization at linear order, and allows for bi-directional control suitable for memory and spintronics applications. However, its use in functional devices has so far been hindered by the slow speed and large uniaxial strains required. Here we show that the essential features of piezomagnetism can be reproduced with optical phonons alone, which can be driven by light to large amplitudes without changing the volume and hence beyond the elastic limits of the material. We exploit nonlinear, three-phonon mixing to induce the desired crystal field distortions in the antiferromagnet CoF₂. Through this effect, we generate a ferrimagnetic moment of 0.2 μ_B per unit cell, nearly three orders of magnitude larger than achieved with mechanical strain.