Ultrafast Spin Dynamics and Photoinduced Insulator-to-Metal Transition in α-RuCl<sub>3</sub>

ORAL

Abstract

Using time-dependent density functional theory, we explore the ultrafast laser-induced dynamics of the electronic and magnetic structures in α-RuCl3. Our study unveils that laser pulses can introduce ultrafast demagnetizations in α-RuCl3, accompanied by an out-of-equilibrium insulator-to-metal transition in a few tens of femtoseconds. The spin response significantly depends on the laser wavelength and polarization on account of the electron correlations, band renormalizations and charge redistributions. These findings provide physical insights into the coupling between the electronic and magnetic degrees of freedom in α-RuCl3 and shed light on suppressing the long-range magnetic orders and reaching a proximate spin liquid phase for two-dimensional magnets on an ultrafast timescale.

*This work is supported by the European Research Council (ERC-2015-AdG-694097), Grupos Consolidados (IT1249-19), and SFB925. AR is supported by the Flatiron Institute, a division of the Simons Foundation. We acknowledge funding by the Deutsche Forschungs-14 gemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under RTG 1995, within the Priority Program SPP 2244 "2DMP", under Germany's Excellence Strategy - Cluster of Excellence and Advanced Imaging of Matter (AIM) EXC 2056 - 390715994 and RTG 2247. JZ acknowledges funding received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 886291 (PeSD-NeSL). LX acknowledges the support from Distinguished Junior Fellowship program by the South Bay Interdisciplinary Science Center in the Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory.

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Presenters

  • Jin Zhang

    • Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter
    • Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Hamburg, Germany.

Authors

  • Jin Zhang

    • Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter
    • Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Hamburg, Germany.