Giant chiral magnetoelectric oscillations in a van der Waals multiferroic.

Helical spin structures are expressions of magnetically induced chirality, entangling the dipolar and magnetic orders in materials ^1-4 . The recent discovery of helical van der Waals multiferroics down to the ultrathin limit raises prospects of large chiral magnetoelectric correlations in two dimensions ^5,6 . However, the exact nature and magnitude of these couplings have remained unknown so far. Here we perform a precision measurement of the dynamical magnetoelectric coupling for an enantiopure domain in an exfoliated van der Waals multiferroic. We evaluate this interaction in resonance with a collective electromagnon mode, capturing the impact of its oscillations on the dipolar and magnetic orders of the material with a suite of ultrafast optical probes. Our data show a giant natural optical activity at terahertz frequencies, characterized by quadrature modulations between the electric polarization and magnetization components. First-principles calculations further show that these chiral couplings originate from the synergy between the non-collinear spin texture and relativistic spin-orbit interactions, resulting in substantial enhancements over lattice-mediated effects. Our findings highlight the potential for intertwined orders to enable unique functionalities in the two-dimensional limit and pave the way for the development of van der Waals magnetoelectric devices operating at terahertz speeds.
(© 2024. The Author(s).)