Giant effective damping of octupole oscillation in an antiferromagnetic Weyl semimetal

Abstract

A magnetic Weyl semimetal is a recent focus of extensive research as it may exhibit large and robust transport phenomena associated with topologically protected Weyl points in momentum space. Since a magnetic texture provides a handle for the configuration of the Weyl points and its transport response, understanding of magnetic dynamics should form a basis of future control of a topological magnet. Mn3Sn is an example of an antiferromagnetic Weyl semimetal that exhibits a large response comparable to the one observed in ferromagnets despite a vanishingly small magnetization. The non-collinear spin order in Mn3Sn can be viewed as a ferroic order of cluster magnetic octupole and breaks the time-reversal symmetry, stabilizing Weyl points and the significantly enhanced Berry curvature near the Fermi energy. Here we report our first observation of time-resolved octupole oscillation in Mn3Sn. In particular, we find the giant effective damping of the octupole dynamics, and it is feasible to conduct an ultrafast switching at < 10 ps, a hundred times faster than the case of spin-magnetization in a ferromagnet. Moreover, high domain wall velocity over 10 km/s is theoretically predicted. Our work paves the path towards realizing ultrafast electronic devices using the topological antiferromagnet.