Strong and tunable coupling between antiferromagnetic magnons and surface plasmons

Abstract

Surface plasmons are the collective electron excitations in metallic systems and the associated electromagnetic wave usually has the transverse magnetic (TM) polarization. On the other hand, spin waves are the spin excitations perpendicular to the equilibrium magnetization and are usually circularly polarized in a ferromagnet. The direct coupling of these two modes is difficult due to the difficulty of matching electromagnetic boundary conditions at the interface of magnetic and non-magnetic materials. Here, we overcome this challenge by utilizing the linearly polarized spin waves in antiferromagnets (AFM) and show that a strong coupling between AFM magnons and surface plasmons can be realized in a hybrid 2D material/AFM structure, featuring a clear anticrossing spectrum at resonance. The coupling strength, characterized by the gap of anticrossing at resonance, can be tuned by electric gating on 2D materials and be probed by measuring the two reflection minima in the reflection spectrum. Further, as a potential application, we show that plasmonic modes can assist the coupling of two well-separated AFMs over several micrometers, featuring symmetric and antisymmetric hybrid modes. Our results may open a new platform to study antiferromagnetic spintronics and its interplay with plasmonic photonics.