Magnon polarons in the van der Waals antiferromagnet Fe PS3

The hybridization of magnons (spin waves) with phonons, if sufficiently strong and comprising of long wavelength excitations, may offer a new playground when manipulating the magnetically ordered systems with light. Applying a magnetic field to a quasi-two-dimensional antiferromagnet, Fe PS3, we tune the magnon-gap excitation to coincide with the initially lower-in-energy phonon modes. Hybrid magnon-phonon modes, the magnon polarons are unveiled with the demonstration of a pronounced avoided crossing between the otherwise bare magnon and phonon excitations. The magnon polarons in Fe PS3 are traced with Raman scattering experiments. However, as we show, they also couple directly to terahertz photons, evoking their further explorations in the domain of antiferromagnetic optospintronics. The magnon-phonon coupling is also discussed as a possible reason of the magnon mode splitting observed in the absence of a magnetic field.