Spin-flop transition in the quasi-two-dimensional antiferromagnet <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:msub><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">MnPS</mml:mi><mml:mn>3</mml:mn></mml:msub></mml:math> detected via thermally generated magnon transport
F. Feringa, J. M. Vink, B. J. van Wees
Abstract
We present the detection of the spin-flop transition in the antiferromagnetic van der Waals material ${\mathrm{MnPS}}_{3}$ via thermally generated nonlocal magnon transport using permalloy (Py) detector strips. Py detector strips possess the inverse anomalous spin Hall effect, which has the unique power to detect an out-of-plane spin accumulation [Das et al., Nano Lett. 18, 5633 (2018)]. This enables us to detect magnons with an out-of-plane spin polarization, in contrast to strips of high-spin-orbit materials such as Pt which possess only the spin Hall effect and are sensitive to only an in-plane spin polarization of the spin accumulation. We show that nonlocal magnon transport is able to measure the spin-flop transition in the absence of spurious magnetoresistance effects. Our measurements show the detection of magnons generated by the spin Seebeck effect before and after the spin-flop transition. We observe a signal reversal of the magnon spin accumulation which agrees with the out-of-plane spin polarization carried by magnon modes before and after the spin-flop transition.