Disentangling magnetic and optical contributions in ultrafast dynamics of antiperovskite non-collinear antiferromagnets

TL;DR

This study uses pump-probe experiments and optical modeling to distinguish magnetic and optical effects in ultrafast dynamics of non-collinear antiferromagnetic Mn3NiN and Mn3GaN thin films, revealing phase-dependent behaviors.

Contribution

It provides a quantitative method to separate magnetic and non-magnetic contributions in ultrafast optical signals of non-collinear antiferromagnets.

Findings

Magnetic field dependence in Mn3NiN arises from domain redistribution.

No magnetic field dependence observed in Mn3GaN signals.

Temperature affects the quenching dynamics in Mn3NiN, showing a crossover behavior.

Abstract

Non-collinear antiferromagnets are a class of spin-polarized antiferromagnets in which chiral spin textures give rise to Berry-curvature-driven phenomena, such as the anomalous Hall effect (AHE), without net magnetization. We investigate the properties of thin films of antiperovskite non-collinear antiferromagnetic metals Mn3NiN and Mn3GaN using pump-probe experiments. In both materials, we observe a strong dependence of pump-polarization-independent dynamics, induced by femtosecond laser pulses, on the angle between the sample normal and the direction of probe propagation. In Mn3NiN, where the presence of a sizable AHE indicates the {\Gamma}4g phase, the measured magnetooptical (MO) signals acquire an additional, strong dependence on the external magnetic field when the probe pulses are incident at nonzero angles. In contrast, in Mn3GaN, where the absence of AHE indicates the {\Gamma}5g phase, the measured signals do not depend on the magnetic field. Using probe-polarization-resolved measurements combined with full optical modeling based on Yeh's formalism, we quantitatively separate magnetic and non-magnetic contributions to the measured signals. We show that in Mn3NiN, the observed magnetic field dependence results from field-controlled redistribution of magnetic domain populations, enabled by their piezomagnetic moments and detected by a Kerr-like MO effect, while this effect is absent in Mn3GaN. Temperature-dependent measurements reveal a change from single-step to two-step quenching dynamics with increasing temperature in Mn3NiN. This behavior contrasts with the nearly temperature-independent quenching dynamics reported for the non-collinear antiferromagnetic Heusler compound Mn3Sn, but resembles the crossover from type-I to type-II demagnetization dynamics in metallic ferromagnets.