English

Spin-canting-induced Giant Nonlinear Optical Magnetochirality in a 2D Ferrotoroid

Optics 2026-07-30 v1 Materials Science

Abstract

Achieving magnetically switchable chiral light emission is an important goal for 2D opto-spintronics. However, conventional strategies face a fundamental trade-off between dynamic tunability and polarization contrast. Nonlinear optics, particularly the emerging mechanism of chiral second-harmonic generation (SHG), offers a distinct strategy to bypass this restriction, yet its experimental realization remains elusive due to stringent symmetry requirements. Here, we report giant nonlinear optical magnetochirality in a centrosymmetric 2D ferrotoroid, bilayer (2L) CrSBr. We reveal that a field-induced spin-canting state breaks the parity-time (PT) symmetry of the unperturbed antiferromagnetic (AFM) ground state, activating a spin-chirality-driven i-type susceptibility. The coherent interference between this emergent i-type and intrinsic c-type SHG susceptibilities generates a macroscopic circularly polarized SHG signal whose helicity is magnetically switchable. Leveraging this sensitive mechanism, we uncover remanent magnetic states after field saturation that evade conventional linear probes. By exploiting the non-volatility of these states, we demonstrate magneto-optical memory and logic operations. Our work establishes a general symmetry-driven strategy for tailoring nonlinear magnetochirality, while providing a sensitive optical probe for subtle spin textures in the 2D limit.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.28067,
  title  = {Spin-canting-induced Giant Nonlinear Optical Magnetochirality in a 2D Ferrotoroid},
  author = {Shian Xia and Sheng Liu and Wenhe Jia and Fanglu Qin and Xuanji Wang and Haixiang Luo and Yue Sun and Vanessa Li Zhang and Wenduo Chen and Jiazheng Qin and Cheng-Wei Qiu and Ting Yu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.28067},
  year   = {2026}
}