Electric-Field Induced Spin Wave Nonreciprocity in Noncoplanar Magnets

Abstract

We show that an electric field can induce nonreciprocal spin wave dispersion in magnetic insulators with negligible spin-orbit coupling. The electric field controls the direction and magnitude of nonreciprocity through a nonlinear magnetoelectric effect without switching the magnetic ground state. By deriving spin space group symmetry constraints, we find only a subset of noncoplanar magnets exhibits this property, and identify a few candidates. For the example of hexagonal lattice tetrahedral antiferromagnet, our effective field theory analysis and microscopic model calculation yield results that are fully consistent with the symmetry analysis.