Tunneling between chiral magnets: Spin current generation without external fields

Abstract

Magnons can generate a spin current, and the standard generating mechanism requires at least one external field. Since this mechanism is often applied to a multilayer system including a magnet and a paramagnetic metal, the system can possess not only the charge current induced by the spin current but also the charge current induced by the external field. The latter is an unnecessary accompaniment. Here we show that the tunneling of a magnon pair between chiral magnets can generate a spin current even without external fields. This phenomenon originates from a phase difference between magnon pairs of separate, weakly coupled chiral magnets, and is essentially different from the mechanism using the angle degree of freedom of the magnon Bose-Einstein condensates. The pair's tunneling is possible in chiral magnets due to lack of the Goldstone-type gapless excitations. This phenomenon opens the door to spintronics not requiring any external field and using the magnon pair tunneling.