Cavity based sensing of antiferromagnetic canting and nonzero-momentum spin waves in a van der Waals cavity-magnon-polariton system

TL;DR

This paper explores how cavity-magnon-polaritons in a van der Waals antiferromagnet can be tuned using magnetic fields, revealing non-zero momentum spin waves and their potential for fast, low-loss information transfer in hybrid quantum devices.

Contribution

It demonstrates magnetic field-dependent coupling in CrCl3, including spin-flop transitions and non-zero momentum spin wave modes, expanding understanding of cavity-magnon interactions in antiferromagnets.

Findings

Coupling strength varies nonmonotonically with magnetic field.

Detection of spin-flop transition signatures in cavity harmonics.

Identification of non-zero momentum spin wave modes as low-loss channels.

Abstract

Cavity-magnon-polaritons are hybrid excitations from the interaction between cavity photons and magnons, the quanta of collective spin oscillations. Along with the tunability of the magnon-photon coupling strength, fast information transfer and conversion speed are desired in hybrid devices. This can be achieved utilizing the propagating nature of spin waves with non-zero momentum for their ultra-fast time dynamics and reduced ohmic dissipation. Antiferromagnets are particularly interesting as hosts for magnons since stray-field interactions are minimized, and they support multiple modes with distinctive magnetic-field behavior across the phase diagram. CrCl3 is a van der Waals antiferromagnet having a strong easy-plane anisotropy and a weak in-plane easy-axis anisotropy. Despite some magnetic resonance studies, the impact of magnetic reorientation of spins in CrCl3 on cavity-magnon-polariton interaction strength as a function of magnetic field remains largely unexplored. In this study, we investigate the coupling between magnons in CrCl3 and photons in a coplanar waveguide resonator as a function of magnetic field. In particular, we find that the magnon-photon coupling strength varies nonmonotonically and distinctly with the magnetic field for both acoustic and optical magnons, enabling tuning of the coupling strength with an external magnetic field as a knob. We find the signature of spin-flop transition in two harmonics of the cavity due to a stronger dispersive coupling between optical magnons and cavity photons at lower fields. Additionally, we find standing modes formed by spin waves with nonzero momentum associated with the two hybrid magnons when the external field is applied at an angle with the crystal plane. These modes do not undergo substantial coupling with the cavity mode unlike the antiferromagnetic modes and can be used as low-loss propagation channels in hybrid devices.