Magnon corner states in twisted bilayer honeycomb magnets

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that twisted bilayer honeycomb magnets can host second-order topological magnon insulators with protected corner states, depending on the interlayer exchange coupling, offering a new platform for topological magnonics.

Contribution

It introduces twisted bilayer honeycomb magnets as a novel platform for second-order topological magnon insulators without the need for fine-tuning.

Findings

Topologically protected magnon corner states appear with ferromagnetic interlayer coupling.

Antiferromagnetic coupling leads to a nodal phase instead of corner states.

Higher-order topology depends significantly on interlayer exchange interactions.

Abstract

Search for higher-order topological insulators, characterized by topologically protected gapless boundary states of codimension higher than one, in bosonic systems has attracted growing interest. Here, we establish twisted bilayer honeycomb magnets as a new platform for hosting second-order topological magnon insulators (SOTMIs) without fine-tuning. We employ a simple, minimal Heisenberg spin model to describe misaligned bilayer sheets of honeycomb ferromagnetic magnets with a large commensurate twist angle. We found that the higher-order topology in this bilayer system shows a significant dependence on the interlayer exchange coupling. The SOTMI, featuring topologically protected magnon corner states, appears for ferromagnetic interlayer couplings, while the twisted bilayer exhibits a nodal phase in the case of antiferromagnetic interlayer coupling.