News

24.07.2023 New Joint Publication in Antiferromagnetic Spintronics

A joint publication with Tobias Wagner and Helen Gomonay about coupling of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic spin dynamics in Mn2Au/NiFe thin film bilayers has been published in Physical Review Letters.

They investigate magnetization dynamics of Mn2Au/Py (Ni80Fe20) thin film bilayers using broadband ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) and Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy. Their model reveals the dependence of the hybrid modes on the AFMR frequencies and interfacial coupling as well as the evanescent character of the spin waves that extend across the Mn2Au/Py interface.

You can find the publication under Phys.Rev.Lett.131,046701.

23.07.2023 Upcoming SPICE Workshop on Hybrid Correlated States and Dynamics in Quantum Materials

The SPICE workshop "Hybrid Correlated States and Dynamics in Quantum Materials" will be held from May 14th to 16th, 2024 at the historic WASEM winery, Ingelheim.

The workshop focusses on correlated states of electrons, that give rise to quantum matter, such as ordered magnets, spin liquids, superconductors, and topological materials. The exciting phenomena hosted and technological applications promised by these states of matter have further inspired the scientific community to engineer hybrids where different ingredients for correlations are provided by separate materials coupled together. Thus, such low-dimensional hybrid nanostructures have enabled engineering novel states of matter with intriguing physics, often not admitted by any single platform.

With the recent developments, theoretical and experimental, time reversal symmetry breaking via magnetism has emerged as a powerful tool to engineer novel unconventional superconducting states and phenomena such as nonreciprocity. At the same time, engineering of the superconducting condensate to bear a net spin employing magnet/superconductor hybrids has been demonstrated. This has opened prospects for superconducting spintronics devices enabling dissipationless spin torques and logic. Further, spin fluctuations appear to play a fundamental role in a large fraction of unconventional and two-dimensional superconductors including the recently discovered states in moiré materials. Therefore, these three seemingly disjoint fields are intricately relying on knowledge from each other and can best be tackled with an overview of all three. Providing this overview and a common discussion platform is the main goal of this workshop.

The workshop shall bring together experts and young researchers from three different communities: (i) Magnetism and Spintronics, (ii) Superconductivity and Strongly Correlated Electrons, and (iii) Low-dimensional nanostructures. The purview includes coherent and incoherent magnetization dynamics in conjunction with the various spintronics effects that allow its manipulation and detection. A key topic will be the recently discovered nonreciprocal effects in magnets e.g., chiral magnons, as well as superconductors, e.g., the superconducting diode effect. Recent discoveries regarding two-dimensional materials, multi-orbital superconductivity, Ising superconductors, topological superconductivity and quantum sensors coupled to magnets will also be central to the workshop portfolio. Employing fluctuations of currents (e.g, flow of spin or vortices) to probe the quantum nature of transport will form an exciting topic of discussion across communities. Finally, the case of spin fluctuations mediated superconductivity, that is believed to underlie a wide range of unconventional superconductors can best be discussed with the three communities present at the workshop.

05.07.2023 New Joint Publication in Antiferromagnetic Spintronics

A joint publication with Olena Gomonay about photocurrents, the Inverse faraday effect, and photospin Hall effect in Mn2Au has been published in APL Materials.

They reveal the emergence of large photocurrents of spin in collinear Mn2Au, whose properties can be understood as a result of a non-linear optical version of the spin Hall effect, which they refer to as the photospin Hall effect, encoded into the relation between the driving charge and resulting spin photocurrents. Moreover, they suggest that even a very small canting in Mn2Au can give rise to colossal spin photocurrents that are chiral in flavor. They conclude that the combination of staggered magnetization with the structural and electronic properties of this material results in a unique blend of prominent
photocurrents, which makes Mn2Au a unique platform for advanced optospintronics applications.

You can find the publication under APL Mater 11, 071106.

01.07.2023 Upcoming SPICE Workshop on Terahertz Spintronics: toward Terahertz Spin-based Devices

The SPICE workshop "Terahertz Spintronics: toward Terahertz Spin-based Devices" will be held from October 10th to 12th, 2023 at the historic WASEM winery, Ingelheim.

The workshop focusses on THz spintronics, which is a novel research field that combines magnetism and spintronic with ultrafast optics. Although ultrafast demagnetization of ferromagnetic materials at picosecond timescale has been first observed already three decades ago, recent years have seen the rapid development of THz spintronic devices stemming from ground breaking studies. In the last years, the numerous improvements made in material research (such as on topological insulators and antiferromagnetic materials), interface quality and device engineering have been central to both explore spin-based physics at THz frequencies and investigate to new concepts of spin based THz devices. These cover the full THz block chain (broad and narrowband THz generation and detection, together with control of radiation properties such as polarization and ellipticity) as well as new approaches for THz imaging and encoding THz information. This workshop will bring together world-leading scientists from a broad range of communities, generating further collaborations and developmentsin this emerging field.

You can apply online for the workshop until August 14th, 2023.

03.05.2023 New Joint Publication on Antiferromagnetic Spintronics

A joint publication with Libor Šmejkal about the electronic structure of the electrically switchable antiferromagnet CuMnAs has been published in npj Quantum Materials.

They report direct measurements of the electronic structure of single-crystalline thin films of tetragonal CuMnAs using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), including Fermi surfaces (FS) and energy-wavevector dispersions. This work underscores the need to control the chemical potential in tetragonal CuMnAs to enable the exploration and exploitation of the Dirac fermions with tunable masses, which are predicted to be above the chemical potential in the present samples.

You can find the publication under npj Quantum Materials volume 8, Article number: 19 (2023).

03.05.2023 New Joint Publication in Antiferromagnetic Spintronics

A joint publication with Jairo Sinova and Helen Gomonay about magnon eigenmode and polarization control in the easy-plane phase of hematite has been published in Physical Review B.

They describe how magnon eigenmodes in easy-plane antiferromagnetic insulators are linearly polarized and are not expected to carry any net spin angular momentum. Motivated by recent nonlocal spin transport experiments in the easy-plane phase of hematite, they perform a series of micromagnetic simulations in a nonlocal geometry at finite temperatures. They show that by tuning an external magnetic field, they can control the magnon eigenmodes and the polarization of the spin transport signal in these systems. They argue that a coherent beating oscillation between two orthogonal linearly polarized magnon eigenmodes is the mechanism responsible for finite spin transport in easy-plane antiferromagnetic insulators. The sign of the detected spin signal is also naturally explained by the proposed coherent beating mechanism. Their finding opens a path for on-demand control of the spin signal in a large class of easy-plane antiferromagnetic insulators.

You can find the publication under Phys. Rev. B 107, 184404 (2023).

26.04.2023 Upcoming SPICE Workshop on Recent Advances in Non-Equilibrium and Magnetic Phenomena In July

The SPICE workshop "Young Research Leaders Group Workshop: Recent advances in non-equilibrium and magnetic phenomena" will be held from July 25th to 27th, 2023 at the historic WASEM winery, Ingelheim.

The workshop focuses on bringing together young researchers from both magnetism and more broad non-equilibrium topics with theoretical and experimental backgrounds and hopes to build future collaborations to advance these fields. Science benefits from diversity, open communication, and different perspectives, and special care has been taken to make this event inclusive and gender-balanced.

 

31.03.2023 Joint Publication about Antiferromagnetic Spintronics

A joint publication with Jairo Sinova  and Helen Gomonay about magnon generation in NiO/Pt films has been published in Nature communications.

They demonstrate the combined generation of broadband and narrowband magnons in thin films of NiO/Pt. They present two excitation processes which both lead to the emmision of THz signals. These results open new routes towards the development of fast opto-spintronic devices based on antiferromagnetic materials.

You can find the publication under nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37509-6.

23.02.2023 New Joint Publication in Antiferromagnetic Insulatronics

A joint publication with Helen Gomonay about spintronics in insulating 3d metal oxides with antiferromagnetic coupling has been published in Applied Physics Letters.

They describe that antiferromagnetic transition metal oxides are an established and widely studied materials system in the context of spin-based electronics, commonly used as passive elements in exchange bias-based memory devices. Currently, major interest has resurged due to the recent observation of long-distance spin transport, current-induced switching, and THz emission. As a result, insulating transition metal oxides are now considered to be attractive candidates for active elements in future spintronic devices. They discuss some of the most promising materials systems and highlight recent advances in reading and writing antiferromagnetic ordering. This article aims to provide an overview of the current research and potential future directions in the field of antiferromagnetic insulatronics.

You can find the publication under Appl. Phys. Lett. 122, 080502 (2023).

23.02.2023 New Joint Publication in Magnetotransport and Spintronics

A joint publication with Jairo Sinova and Libor Šmejkal about the growth pathways and structural properties of the manganese silicides has been published in Physical Review Materials.

They describe that the magnetically ordered phases of the Mn5Si3 crystal are proving to be prototypes for the study of the new fundamental spin physics related to the spontaneous breaking of the time-reversal symmetry despite a zero net magnetization. Here, they report on a route to grow epitaxial Mn5Si3 thin films on Si(111). The growth pathways and structural properties of the manganese silicides can be rationalized in terms of reactions maximizing the free-energy lowering rate. Moreover, they found that the magnetic and the magnetotransport properties can be used as an efficient tool to track both Mn5Si3 crystallinity and proportion in the deposited layers.

You can find the publication under Phys. Rev. Materials 7, 024416 (2023).