Magnons in chromium trihalides from \emph{ab initio} Bethe-Salpeter equation

TL;DR

This paper uses first-principles Bethe-Salpeter equation calculations to analyze magnon excitations in monolayer chromium trihalides, revealing how halide variations affect magnetic properties and magnon behavior.

Contribution

It introduces a first-principles BSE approach to compute magnon dispersions and wave functions in 2D CrX$_3$ materials, advancing quantitative modeling of magnons from electronic structure.

Findings

Magnon dispersions depend on the halide species.

The small topological gap at the Dirac point is resolved with spin-orbit coupling.

Magnons are composed of electronic transitions spanning a wider energy range than excitons.

Abstract

Chromium trihalides (CrX$_3$, with $\rm{X=I,Br,Cl}$) are layered ferromagnetic materials with rich physics and possible applications. Their structure consists of magnetic Cr atoms positioned between two layers of halide atoms. The choice of halide results in distinct magnetic properties, but their effect on spin-wave (magnon) excitations is not fully understood. Here we present first-principles calculations of magnon dispersions and wave functions for monolayer Cr trihalides using the finite-momentum Bethe-Salpeter equation (BSE) to describe collective spin-flip excitations. % We study the dependence of magnon dispersions on the halide species and resolve the small topological gap at the Dirac point in the magnon spectrum by including spin-orbit coupling. Analysis of magnon wave functions reveals that magnons are made up of electronic transitions with a wider energy range than excitons in CrX$_3$ monolayers, providing insight into magnon states in real and reciprocal space. We discuss Heisenberg exchange parameters extracted from the BSE and discuss the convergence of BSE magnon calculations. Our work advances the quantitative modeling of magnons in two-dimensional materials, providing the starting point for studying magnon interactions in a first-principles BSE framework.