English

Gapless Dirac magnons in CrCl$_{3}$

Materials Science 2024-05-14 v1

Abstract

Bosonic Dirac materials are testbeds for dissipationless spin-based electronics. In the quasi two-dimensional honeycomb lattice of CrX3_{3} (X=Cl, Br, I), Dirac magnons have been predicted at the crossing of acoustical and optical spin waves, analogous to Dirac fermions in graphene. Here we show that, distinct from CrBr3_{3} and CrI3_{3}, gapless Dirac magnons are present in bulk CrCl3_{3}, with inelastic neutron scattering intensity at low temperatures approaching zero at the Dirac KK point. Upon warming, magnon-magnon interactions induce strong renormalization and decreased lifetimes, with a ~25% softening of the upper magnon branch intensity from 5 to 50 K, though magnon features persist well above TN_{N}. Moreover, an unusual negative thermal expansion (NTE) of the aa-axis lattice constant and anomalous phonon behavior are observed below 50 K, indicating magnetoelastic and spin-phonon coupling arising from an increase in the in-plane spin correlations that begins tens of Kelvin above TN_{N}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2110.10771,
  title  = {Gapless Dirac magnons in CrCl$_{3}$},
  author = {John A. Schneeloch and Yu Tao and Yongqiang Cheng and Luke Daemen and Guangyong Xu and Qiang Zhang and Despina Louca},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2110.10771},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

Files include supplement

R2 v1 2026-06-24T07:03:21.652Z