Engineering terahertz surface magnon-polaritons in hyperbolic antiferromagnets

摘要

Magnetic crystals were recently studied as a route to hyperbolic dispersion and the effects associated with it. These studies, however, concentrated on bulk waves and frequencies where transmission is possible and where negative refraction occurs. Here, in contrast, we concentrate on geometries which sample regions of the dispersion relations where bulk propagation is not possible. This is done by controlling the orientation of the uniaxial anisotropy axis with respect to the surface of the crystal. Furthermore, we find that new magnetic surface polaritons exist in these regions, and we investigate the nature of these waves. In addition, significant tunability can be introduced by applying an external field perpendicular to the easy axes of a uniaxial antiferromagnet, creating a canted structure and generally shifting the frequencies to higher values. This externally applied field dramatically changes the nature of both surface and bulk polaritons, making them highly nonreciprocal.