An efficient material search for room-temperature topological magnons.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 36800420.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.ade7731 and PMC identifier 9937570.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Topologically protected magnon surface states are highly desirable as an ideal platform to engineer low-dissipation spintronics devices. However, theoretical prediction of topological magnons in strongly correlated materials proves to be challenging because the ab initio density functional theory calculations fail to reliably predict magnetic interactions in correlated materials. Here, we present a symmetry-based approach, which predicts topological magnons in magnetically ordered crystals, upon applying external perturbations such as magnetic/electric fields and/or mechanical strains. We apply this approach to carry out an efficient search for magnetic materials in the Bilbao Crystallographic Server, where, among 198 compounds with an over 300-K transition temperature, we identify 12 magnetic insulators that support room-temperature topological magnons. They feature Weyl magnons with surface magnon arcs and magnon axion insulators with either chiral surface or hinge magnon modes, offering a route to realize energy-efficient devices based on protected surface magnons.