Photoinduced topological phase transitions in Kitaev-Heisenberg honeycomb ferromagnets with the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how circularly polarized light can induce and switch between different topological phases in a Kitaev-Heisenberg honeycomb ferromagnet, with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction playing a key role.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework for photoinduced topological phase transitions in Floquet magnons within a Kitaev-Heisenberg model with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction.

Findings

Two topological phases with different Chern numbers identified.

Topological phase can be switched by varying light intensity.

Sign reversal of thermal Hall conductivity indicates phase transition.

Abstract

We theoretically study topological properties of Floquet magnon in a laser-irradiated Kitaev-Heisenberg honeycomb ferromagnet with the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction by means of the Floquet-Bloch theory. It is found that the Kitaev-Heisenberg ferromagnet can reveal two topological phases with different Chern numbers when it is irradiated by a circular-polarized light laser. Our results show that the topological phase of the system can be switched from one topological phase to another one via varying the light intensity. The intrinsic DMI plays a crucial role in the occurrence of photoinduced topological phase transition. It is shown that the sign reversal of the thermal hall conductivity is an important indicator on photoinduced topological phase transitions in the Kitaev-Heisenberg honeycomb ferromagnet.