Light-induced weak ferromagnetism through nonlinear magnonic rectification

Abstract

Rectification describes the generation of a quasistatic component from an oscillating field, such as an electric polarization in optical rectification, or a structural distortion in nonlinear phononic rectification. Here, we present a third fundamental process for magnetization, in which spin precession is rectified along the coordinates of a nonlinearly driven magnon mode in an antiferromagnet. We demonstrate theoretically that a quasistatic magnetization can be induced by transient spin canting in response to the coherent excitation of a chiral phonon mode that produces an effective magnetic field for the spins. This mechanism, which we call nonlinear magnonic rectification, is generally applicable to magnetic systems that exhibit infrared-active chiral phonon modes. Our results serve as an example of light-induced weak ferromagnetism and open a promising avenue towards creating dynamical spin configurations that are not accessible in equilibrium.