Surface magnon-polaritons (SMPs) are a type of
quasiparticle in
condensed matter physics
Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter, especially the solid and liquid phases which arise from electromagnetic forces between atoms. More generally, the sub ...
. They arise from the coupling of incident
electromagnetic (EM) radiations to the
magnetic dipole polarization in the surface layers of a solid .
Magnons are analogous to other forms of
polaritons such as,
plasmons and phonons but represent an oscillation of the magnetic component of the solid's EM field rather than its electric component or a mechanical oscillation in the solid's atomic structure.
They are sometimes referred to as magnetic surface polaritons (MSPs).
By employing, artificially constructed
metamaterials , whose properties mainly stem from their engineered internal fine structures rather than their bulk physical make up, it is possible to more easily achieve useful SMPs. However, they can be found in several natural magnetic materials, including at THz frequencies in antiferromagnetic crystals.
Magnons offer a way to control light-matter interactions at
Terahertz
Terahertz or THz may refer to:
* Terahertz (unit), a unit of frequency, defined as one trillion (1012) cycles per second or 1012 hertz
* Terahertz radiation, electromagnetic waves within the ITU-designated band of frequencies from 0.3 to 3 terahe ...
frequencies.
References
{{CMP-stub
Quasiparticles
Plasmonics