Controlling nonlinear magnons and their transport by electronic spin injection

SPICE Workshop on Young Research Leaders Group Workshop: Transport and transfer of angular momentum: magnons, chiral phonons and beyond June 9th - 11th, 2026

Richard Schlitz

Magnons are quantized excitations of the magnetization texture in ordered magnets, which can be used to transport spin information. In recent years, a new device concept in magnonics has demonstrated that direct current electrical transport can provide access to the transport properties of magnons. These devices leverage the angular momentum conversion from the electrical to the magnonic domain to electrically generate and detect magnon spin currents in heterostructures composed of a magnetic insulator and a heavy metal [1]. Recent studies showed, that in the nonlinear regime the changes of the nonlocal transport allow to also obtain information on the transported magnon manifold [2,3]. In this talk, I will show that entering the nonlinear regime, local modifications of the magnon dispersion can sensitively affect nonlocal magnon transport, giving rise to a strong enhancement of the number of specific low energy magnons. Considering the role of nonlinear relaxation processes, the nonlocal transport can be reconciled with the local modification of the magnon dispersion. These results suggest that nonlocal transport measurements, despite averaging over all modes, are a sensitive probe to unravel changes to the magnon manifold [4]. Furthermore, I will discuss recent experiments which show that by reducing nonlinear magnon-magnon relaxation the magnetization can be dynamically stabilized against the external magnetic field by strong spin current injection. This inversion constitutes a dissipation-driven phase transition, demonstrating a uniquely tunable solid-state platform to study nonlinear control phenomena. Finally, I will show that the dynamically stabilized state features unique excitations, so-called antimagnons, which lower the system’s energy and carry opposite angular momentum compared to conventional magnons [5]. The above results showcase the rich opportunities that arise when magnons are driven into the nonlinear regime by spin injection.

References

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] L. J. Cornelssien et al., Nature Physics 11, 1022-1026 (2015)

R. Kohno et al., Physical Review B 108, 14410 (2023)

R. Kohno et al., Physical Review B 108, 14411 (2023)

R. Schlitz et al., Nature Communications 16, 8472 (2025)

E. Karadza, H. Wang et al., arxiv:2601.09569 (2026)