Light-driven topological and magnetic phase transitions in thin-layer antiferromagnets

ORAL

Abstract

In this talk, we will discuss our theoretical study of the effect of low-frequency light pulses in resonance with phonons in the topological and magnetically ordered two septuple-layer (2-SL) MnBi2Te4(MBT) and MnSb2Te4(MST). In both materials, Raman phonons can be excited via non-linear interactions with photo-excited infrared phonons using intense laser pulses attainable in current experimental setups. The light-induced transient lattice distortions change the sign of the effective interlayer exchange interaction and magnetic order accompanied by a topological band transition. We will show that moderate anti-site disorder, typically present in MBT and MST samples, can facilitate such an effect.

*This research was primarily supported by the National Science Foundation through the Center for Dynamics and Control of Materials: an NSF MRSEC under Cooperative Agreement No. DMR-1720595, with additional support from NSF DMR-1949701and NSF DMR-2114825. This work was performed in part at the Aspen Center for Physics, which is supported by the NationalScience Foundation grant PHY-1607611. A.L. acknowledges support from the funding grant: PID2019-105488GB-I00. M.R-V. was supported by LANL LDRD Program and by theU.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic EnergySciences, Materials Sciences, and Engineering Division, Condensed Matter Theory Program. M.G.V. thanks for support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (grant numberPID2019-109905GB-C21

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Publication: arXiv:2107.14361 (2021)

Presenters

  • Martin A Rodriguez-vega

    • University of Texas at Austin
    • Los Alamos National Laboratory

Authors

  • Martin A Rodriguez-vega

    • University of Texas at Austin
    • Los Alamos National Laboratory

  • Zexun Lin

    • University of Texas at Austin

  • Aritz Leonardo

    • Univ del Pais Vasco

  • Maia G Garcia Vergniory

    • Donostia International Physics Center
    • Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Dresden, Germany

  • Gregory A Fiete

    • Northeastern University

  • Arthur Ernst

    • Institut fur Theoretische Physik, Johannes Kepler Universitat