Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)

Abstract: An antiferromagnetic insulator (AFI) bearing a compensated interface to an adjacent conventional superconductor (S) has recently been predicted to generate N\'eel triplet Cooper pairs, whose amplitude alternates sign in space. Here, we theoretically demonstrate that such N\'eel triplets enable control of the superconducting critical temperature in an S layer via the angle between the N\'eel vectors of two enclosing AFI layers. This angle dependence changes sign with the number of S monolayers providing a distinct signature of the N\'eel triplets. Furthermore, we show that the latter mediate a similarly distinct exchange interaction between the two AFIs' N\'eel vectors.

Abstract: Exchange coupling in an interfacial context is crucial for spin-torque nano oscillator (STNO) that consists of a non-magnetic spacer which is alloyed with a ferromagnetic material. Currently, investigations on the dynamics of the free layer magnetization and frequency enhancement in the STNO with bilinear coupling are still being actively pursued. In the present work, we investigate the dynamics of the STNO in the presence of bilinear coupling but in the absence of an external magnetic field by analyzing the associated Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert-Sloncewski(LLGS) equation, and consequently the impact of the bilinear coupling on the dynamics of the magnetization of the free layer is studied. It is observed that the frequency of the oscillations in the magnetization component along the direction of the pinned layer polarization can be enhanced above 300 GHz by positive bilinear coupling and up to around 30 GHz by negative bilinear coupling. We further reveal a transition from in-plane to out-of-plane precession both for positive and negative bi-linear couplings. We also analyze the switching of the magnetization for different values of current and bilinear coupling. Our detailed investigations of STNO with bilinear coupling aim at the possibilities of high-frequency devices by considering the applied current and bilinear coupling in the absence of a magnetic field.

Abstract: Circularly polarized lattice vibrations carry angular momentum and lead to magnetic responses in applied magnetic fields or when resonantly driven with ultrashort laser pulses. Recent measurements have found responses that are orders of magnitude larger than those calculated in prior theoretical studies. Here, we present a microscopic model for the effective magnetic moments of chiral phonons in magnetic materials that is able to reproduce the experimentally measured magnitudes and that allows us to make quantitative predictions for materials with giant magnetic responses using microscopic parameters. Our model is based on orbit-lattice couplings that hybridize optical phonons with orbital electronic transitions. We apply our model to two types of materials: $4f$ rare-earth halide paramagnets and $3d$ transition-metal oxide magnets. In both cases, we find that chiral phonons can carry giant effective magnetic moments of the order of a Bohr magneton, orders of magnitude larger than previous predictions.

Abstract: Three-dimensional topological insulators support gapless Dirac fermion surface states whose rich topological properties result from the interplay of symmetries and dimensionality. Their topological properties have been extensively studied in systems of integer spatial dimension but the prospect of these surface electrons arranging into structures of non-integer dimension like fractals remains unexplored. In this work, we investigate a new class of states arising from the coupling of surface Dirac fermions to a time-reversal symmetric fractal potential, which breaks translation symmetry while retaining self-similarity. Employing large-scale exact diagonalization, scaling analysis of the inverse participation ratio, and the box-counting method, we establish the onset of self-similar Dirac fermions with fractal dimension for a symmetry-preserving surface potential with the geometry of a Sierpinski carpet fractal with fractal dimension $D \approx 1.89$. Dirac fractal surface states open a fruitful avenue to explore exotic regimes of transport and quantum information storage in topological systems with fractal dimensionality.