- Open Access
Spin-caloritronic signatures of soft magnons in bilayer CrSBr
Phys. Rev. B 114, 214415 – Published 15 October, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/ckf6-gwfq
Abstract
Spin transport in magnetic insulators is often treated by assuming that magnons carry a fixed spin angular momentum of , which does not hold in general, however. Here, we calculate the magnon spin angular momentum of a layered antiferromagnet as a function of applied magnetic field and wave vector. We show that the triaxial anisotropy and intralayer dipolar interactions in bilayer CrSBr renormalize the magnon spin angular momentum, which diverges upon field-induced magnon softening. This divergence gives rise to a pronounced peak in the thermal spin Seebeck response and provides a clear spin-caloritronic signature of soft magnons.
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Article Text
References (42)
- E. Saitoh, M. Ueda, H. Miyajima, and G. Tatara, Conversion of spin current into charge current at room temperature: Inverse spin-Hall effect, Appl. Phys. Lett. 88, 182509 (2006).
- K. Uchida, S. Takahashi, K. Harii, J. Ieda, W. Koshibae, K. Ando, S. Maekawa, and E. Saitoh, Observation of the spin Seebeck effect, Nature (London) 455, 778 (2008).
- G. E. W. Bauer, E. Saitoh, and B. J. van Wees, Spin caloritronics, Nat. Mater. 11, 391 (2012).
- S. R. Boona, R. C. Myers, and J. P. Heremans, Spin caloritronics, Energy Environ. Sci. 7, 885 (2014).
- K. Uchida, J. Xiao, H. Adachi, J. Ohe, S. Takahashi, J. Ieda, T. Ota, Y. Kajiwara, H. Umezawa, H. Kawai, G. E. W. Bauer, S. Maekawa, and E. Saitoh, Spin Seebeck insulator, Nat. Mater. 9, 894 (2010).
- S. M. Rezende, R. L. Rodríguez-Suárez, and A. Azevedo, Diffusive magnonic spin transport in antiferromagnetic insulators, Phys. Rev. B 93, 054412 (2016).
- H. Wu, L. Huang, C. Fang, B. S. Yang, C. H. Wan, G. Q. Yu, J. F. Feng, H. X. Wei, and X. F. Han, Magnon valve effect between two magnetic insulators, Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 097205 (2018).
- J. Holanda, D. S. Maior, O. Alves Santos, L. H. Vilela-Leão, J. B. S. Mendes, A. Azevedo, R. L. Rodríguez-Suárez, and S. M. Rezende, Spin Seebeck effect in the antiferromagnet nickel oxide at room temperature, Appl. Phys. Lett. 111, 172405 (2017).
- C. Gong, L. Li, Z. Li, H. Ji, A. Stern, Y. Xia, T. Cao, W. Bao, C. Wang, Y. Wang, Z. Q. Qiu, R. J. Cava, S. G. Louie, J. Xia, and X. Zhang, Discovery of intrinsic ferromagnetism in two-dimensional van der Waals crystals, Nature (London) 546, 265 (2017).
- M. Gibertini, M. Koperski, A. F. Morpurgo, and K. S. Novoselov, Magnetic 2D materials and heterostructures, Nat. Nanotechnol. 14, 408 (2019).
- B. Huang, G. Clark, E. Navarro-Moratalla, D. R. Klein, R. Cheng, K. L. Seyler, D. Zhong, E. Schmidgall, M. A. McGuire, D. H. Cobden, W. Yao, D. Xiao, P. Jarillo-Herrero, and X. Xu, Layer-dependent ferromagnetism in a van der Waals crystal down to the monolayer limit, Nature (London) 546, 270 (2017).
- D. MacNeill, J. T. Hou, D. R. Klein, P. Zhang, P. Jarillo-Herrero, and L. Liu, Gigahertz frequency antiferromagnetic resonance and strong magnon-magnon coupling in the layered crystal , Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 047204 (2019).
- M. Bonilla, S. Kolekar, Y. Ma, H. C. Diaz, V. Kalappattil, R. Das, T. Eggers, H. R. Gutierrez, M.-H. Phan, and M. Batzill, Strong room-temperature ferromagnetism in monolayers on van der Waals substrates, Nat. Nanotechnol. 13, 289 (2018).
- B. Huang, G. Clark, D. R. Klein, D. MacNeill, E. Navarro-Moratalla, K. L. Seyler, N. Wilson, M. A. McGuire, D. H. Cobden, D. Xiao, W. Yao, P. Jarillo-Herrero, and X. Xu, Electrical control of 2D magnetism in bilayer , Nat. Nanotechnol. 13, 544 (2018).
- C. Gong and X. Zhang, Two-dimensional magnetic crystals and emergent heterostructure devices, Science 363, eaav4450 (2019).
- K. Yang, G. Wang, L. Liu, D. Lu, and H. Wu, Triaxial magnetic anisotropy in the two-dimensional ferromagnetic semiconductor CrSBr, Phys. Rev. B 104, 144416 (2021).
- M. Ziebel, M. Feuer, J. Cox, X. Zhu, C. Dean, and X. Roy, CrSBr: An air-stable, two-dimensional magnetic semiconductor, Nano Lett. 24, 4319 (2024).
- L. Krelle, R. Tan, D. Markina, P. Mondal, K. Mosina, K. Hagmann, R. von Klitzing, K. Watanabe, T. Taniguchi, Z. Sofer, and B. Urbaszek, Magnetic correlation spectroscopy in CrSBr, ACS Nano 19, 33156 (2025).
- R. den Teuling, R. Das, A. V. Bondarenko, E. V. Tartakovskaya, G. E. W. Bauer, and Y. M. Blanter, Spin waves in the bilayer van der Waals magnet CrSBr, Phys. Rev. B 112, 144442 (2025).
- S. M. Rezende, B. Freelon, and R. L. Rodríguez-Suárez, Spin wave theory for the triaxial magnetic anisotropy two-dimensional van der Waals antiferromagnet CrSBr, AIP Adv. 16, 015119 (2026).
- G. E. W. Bauer, P. Tang, M. Elyasi, Y. M. Blanter, and B. J. van Wees, Soft magnons in anisotropic ferromagnets, Phys. Rev. B 108, 064431 (2023).
- S. A. Bender, R. A. Duine, and Y. Tserkovnyak, Electronic pumping of quasiequilibrium Bose-Einstein-condensed magnons, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 246601 (2012).
- S. M. Rezende, R. L. Rodríguez-Suárez, and A. Azevedo, Theory of the spin Seebeck effect in antiferromagnets, Phys. Rev. B 93, 014425 (2016).
- L. J. Cornelissen, K. J. H. Peters, G. E. W. Bauer, R. A. Duine, and B. J. van Wees, Magnon spin transport driven by the magnon chemical potential in a magnetic insulator, Phys. Rev. B 94, 014412 (2016).
- A. Kamra, U. Agrawal, and W. Belzig, Noninteger-spin magnonic excitations in untextured magnets, Phys. Rev. B 96, 020411(R) (2017).
- N. Okuma, Magnon spin-momentum locking: Various spin vortices and Dirac magnons in noncollinear antiferromagnets, Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 107205 (2017).
- R. d. Teuling, R. Das, A. V. Bondarenko, E. V. Tartakovskaya, G. E. W. Bauer, and Y. M. Blanter, Dipolar-exchange spin waves in thin bilayers, Low Temp. Phys. 51, 998 (2025).
- K. De'Bell, A. B. MacIsaac, and J. P. Whitehead, Dipolar effects in magnetic thin films and quasi-two-dimensional systems, Rev. Mod. Phys. 72, 225 (2000).
- T. Holstein and H. Primakoff, Field dependence of the intrinsic domain magnetization of a ferromagnet, Phys. Rev. 58, 1098 (1940).
- N. N. Bogoliubov, On the theory of superfluidity, J. Phys. (USSR) 11, 23 (1947).
- N. Okuma, Mathematical aspects of spin-momentum locking: Generalization to magnonic systems and application of orbifold to topological material science, Ph.D. thesis, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, 2018.
- J. H. P. Colpa, Diagonalization of the quadratic boson Hamiltonian, Physica A 93, 327 (1978).
- A. Kamra and W. Belzig, Super-Poissonian shot noise of squeezed-magnon mediated spin transport, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 146601 (2016).
- G. Hoogeboom, Spin transport and spin dynamics in antiferromagnets, Ph.D. thesis, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands, 2021.
- J. S. Jamison, Z. Yang, B. L. Giles, J. T. Brangham, G. Wu, P. C. Hammel, F. Yang, and R. C. Myers, Long lifetime of thermally excited magnons in bulk yttrium iron garnet, Phys. Rev. B 100, 134402 (2019).
- Y. Gu, J. Barker, J. Li, T. Kikkawa, F. Camino, K. Kisslinger, J. Sinsheimer, L. Lienhard, J. J. Bauer, C. A. Ross, D. N. Basov, E. Saitoh, J. Pelliciari, G. E. W. Bauer, and V. Bisogni, Observing differential spin currents by resonant inelastic x-ray scattering, Nature (London) 645, 900 (2025).
- P. Tang and G. E. W. Bauer, Thermal and coherent spin pumping by noncollinear antiferromagnets, Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 036701 (2024).
- B. Heinrich, C. Burrowes, E. Montoya, B. Kardasz, E. Girt, Y.-Y. Song, Y. Sun, and M. Wu, Spin pumping at the magnetic insulator (YIG)/normal metal (Au) interfaces, Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 066604 (2011).
- S. S. Zhang and S.-C. Zhang, Spin convertance at magnetic interfaces, Phys. Rev. B 86, 214424 (2012).
- Q. Lu, Y. Li, B. Peng, H. Tang, Y. Zhang, Z. He, L. Wang, C. Li, W. Su, Q. Yang, Z. Zhou, and M. Liu, Enhancement of the spin-mixing conductance in bilayers by interface engineering, Phys. Rev. Appl. 12, 064035 (2019).
- R. den Teuling, P. Tang, G. E. W. Bauer, and Y. M. Blanter, Dataset for “Spin-caloritronic signatures of soft magnons in bilayer CrSBr”, Dataset, figshare, 2026, doi: 10.6084/m9.figshare.31375255
- D. L. Esteras, A. Rybakov, A. M. Ruiz, and J. J. Baldoví, Magnon straintronics in the 2D van der Waals ferromagnet CrSBr from first-principles, Nano Lett. 22, 8771 (2022).