Insider Brief<\/p>\n
A Nature Materials review outlines how atomically thin magnetic semiconductors can tightly couple light, electric charge and spin for potential quantum and optoelectronic applications. <\/p>\n
The City College of New York-led researchers describe how excitons interact with magnetic order and magnons, enabling optical readout and possible control of magnetic states. <\/p>\n
Potential applications include magneto-photonic memory, optical logic, tunable light emitters, polaritonic devices and microwave-to-optical quantum transducers.<\/p>\n
Artistic rendering of excitons coupled to magnetic order and spin waves in a layered magnetic semiconductor. (CCNY)<\/p>\n
PRESS RELEASE \u2014 Researchers in City College of New York physicist\u00a0Vinod M. Menon\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0Laboratory for Nano and Micro Photonics (LaNMP<\/a>) have outlined an emerging frontier in quantum materials: atomically thin systems in which light, magnetism, and electric charge are strongly intertwined. This rapidly evolving field could enable next-generation optoelectronic and quantum technologies leveraging the coupled dynamics of light, charge, and spin.<\/p>\n A review article in\u00a0Nature Materials<\/a>\u00a0titled \u201cExcitons in van der Waals magnetic materials,\u201d surveys recent advances by the CCNY team in layered magnetic semiconductors, where light-generated electronic excitations known as excitons interact with magnetic order and spin waves known as magnons. Excitons form when light excites an electron inside a material, leaving behind a positively charged \u201chole.\u201d The electron and hole remain bound together as a neutral but optically active particle. Magnons, by contrast, are collective ripples in a material\u2019s magnetic order.<\/p>\n Researchers have long sought to combine exciton-rich semiconductor optics with magnetism, for example by adding magnetic atoms to semiconductors or placing atomically thin semiconductors on magnetic materials. Van der Waals magnetic semiconductors offer a more intrinsic route: the excitons and magnetic moments can arise from the same electronic orbitals inside the crystal, allowing light and magnetism to interact directly.<\/p>\n \u201cIn these materials, light and magnetism no longer operate as separate channels,\u201d said\u00a0Pratap Chandra Adak<\/a>, a postdoctoral researcher in Menon\u2019s group and lead author of the Review. \u201cAn exciton is not just a passive light-driven excitation sitting on top of the magnetism. It can sense the spin order and magnons, and under the right conditions, even help control the magnetic state itself.\u201d<\/p>\n The Review discusses representative material platforms, including chromium triiodide, nickel phosphorus trisulfide, and chromium sulfur bromide. It highlights several phenomena that have emerged across two-dimensional magnets. Excitons can strongly enhance magneto-optical effects, enabling the readout of magnetic states via changes in light polarization. Magnetic order can tune exciton energies and spatial confinement, while exciton\u2013magnon coupling can link optical signals to gigahertz magnetic dynamics. The article also surveys exciton-polaritons \u2014 hybrid light\u2013matter particles that can carry optical information through a material.<\/p>\n \u201cOver the past few years, this field has moved from detecting magnetism in atomically thin crystals to actively exploring how magnetic order can control light\u2013matter interactions,\u201d said Menon, professor of physics and senior author of the Review. \u201cThe goal of this article is to bring those developments into a coherent framework and identify where the field can go next.\u201d<\/p>\n The Review also frames possible future directions for technologies that require precise control of light and magnetism at small scales, including magneto-photonic memory and readout, all-optical logic, tunable light-emitting devices, magneto-optic lasers, polaritonic devices, and quantum transducers \u2014 devices that convert signals between microwave and optical frequencies for future quantum networks.<\/p>\n Several open challenges remain. Many candidate materials are only partially explored, and researchers need more predictive theoretical tools to describe how excitons, spins, lattice vibrations, and photons interact simultaneously. Promising directions include moir\u00e9 magnetic excitons, optical control of spin textures, magneto-photonic devices, magnetic exciton-polariton condensation, and microwave-to-optical quantum transduction.<\/p>\n Other co-authors include\u00a0Florian Dirnberger<\/a>\u00a0of the Technical University of Munich;\u00a0Swagata Acharya<\/a>\u00a0of the National Laboratory of the Rockies;\u00a0Akashdeep Kamra<\/a>\u00a0of Rheinland-Pf\u00e4lzische Technische Universit\u00e4t Kaiserslautern-Landau; and\u00a0Xiaodong Xu<\/a>\u00a0of the University of Washington.<\/p>\n The work at CCNY was supported by DARPA and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Insider Brief A Nature Materials review outlines how atomically thin magnetic semiconductors can tightly couple light, electric charge…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[85,46,370,141],"class_list":["post-541095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-physics","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-physics","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}