0000000000253210

AUTHOR

Kjetil M. D. Hals

Large surface magnetization in noncentrosymmetric antiferromagnets

Thin-film antiferromagnets (AFs) with Rashba spin-orbit coupling are theoretically investigated. We demonstrate that the relativistic Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) produces a large surface magnetization and a boundary-driven twist state in the antiferromagnetic N\' eel vector. We predict a magnetization on the order of $2.3\cdot 10^4$~A/m, which is comparable to the magnetization of ferromagnetic semiconductors. Importantly, the magnetization is characterized by ultra-fast terahertz dynamics and provides new approaches for efficiently probing and controlling the spin dynamics of AFs as well as detecting the antiferromagnetic DMI. Notably, the magnetization does not lead to any str…

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Effect of boundary-induced chirality on magnetic textures in thin films

In the quest for miniaturizing magnetic devices, the effects of boundaries and surfaces become increasingly important. Here we show how the recently predicted boundary-induced Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) affects the magnetization of ferromagnetic films with a $C_{\infty v}$ symmetry and a perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. For an otherwise uniformly magnetized film, we find a surface twist when the magnetization in the bulk is canted by an in-plane external field. This twist at the surfaces caused by the boundary-induced DMI differs from the common canting caused by internal DMI observed at the edges of a chiral magnet. Further, we find that the surface twist due to the boundary…

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Twists in Ferromagnetic Monolayers With Trigonal Prismatic Symmetry

Two-dimensional materials such as graphene or hexagonal boron nitride are indispensable in industry. The recently discovered 2D ferromagnetic materials also promise to be vital for applications. In this work, we develop a phenomenological description of non-centrosymmetric 2D ferromagnets with trigonal prismatic crystal structure. We chose to study this special symmetry group since these materials do break inversion symmetry and therefore, in principle, allow for chiral spin structures such as magnetic helices and skyrmions. However, unlike all non-centrosymmetric magnets known so far, we show that the symmetry of magnetic trigonal prismatic monolayers neither allow for an internal relativi…

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Spin pumping in noncollinear antiferromagnets

The ac spin pumping of noncollinear antiferromagnets is theoretically investigated. Starting from an effective action description of the spin system, we derive the Onsager coefficients connecting the spin pumping and spin-transfer torque associated with the dynamics of the SO(3)-valued antiferromagnetic order parameter. Our theory is applied to a kagome antiferromagnet resonantly driven by a uniform external magnetic field. We demonstrate that the reactive (dissipative) spin-transfer torque parameter can be extracted from the pumped ac spin current in-phase (in quadrature) with the driving field. Furthermore, we find that the three spin-wave bands of the kagome AF generate spin currents wit…

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New Boundary-Driven Twist States in Systems with Broken Spatial Inversion Symmetry

A full description of a magnetic sample includes a correct treatment of the boundary conditions (BCs). This is in particular important in thin film systems, where even bulk properties might be modified by the properties of the boundary of the sample. We study generic ferromagnets with broken spatial inversion symmetry and derive the general micromagnetic BCs of a system with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI). We demonstrate that the BCs require the full tensorial structure of the third-rank DMI tensor and not just the antisymmetric part, which is usually taken into account. Specifically, we study systems with $C_{\infty v}$ symmetry and explore the consequences of the DMI. Interesting…

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Spin-Wave Driven Bidirectional Domain Wall Motion in Kagome Antiferromagnets

We predict a mechanism to controllably manipulate domain walls in kagome antiferromagnets via a single linearly polarized spin-wave source. We show by means of atomistic spin dynamics simulations of antiferromagnets with kagome structure that the speed and direction of the domain wall motion can be regulated by only tuning the frequency of the applied spin-wave. Starting from microscopics, we establish an effective action and derive the corresponding equations of motion for the spin-wave-driven domain wall. Our analytical calculations reveal that the coupling of two spin-wave modes inside the domain wall explains the frequency-dependent velocity of the spin texture. Such a highly tunable sp…

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