Chiral Magnetic Phases in Moire Bilayers of Magnetic Dipoles

Abstract

Abstract In magnetic insulators, the sense of rotation of the magnetization is associated with novel phases of matter and exotic transport phenomena. Aimed to find new sources of chiral magnetism rooted in intrinsic fields and geometry, twisted square bilayers of magnetic dipoles with easy plane anisotropy are studied. For no twist, each lattice settles in the zig‐zag magnetic state and orders antiferromagnetically to the other layer. The moire patterns that result from the mutual rotation of the two square lattices influence such zig‐zag order, giving rise to several phases that depict non‐collinear magnetic textures with chiral motifs that break both time and inversion symmetry. For certain moire angles, helical and toroidal magnetic orders arise. Changing the vertical distance between layers can further manipulate these novel phases. It is shown that the dipolar interlayer interaction induces an emergent twist‐dependent chiral magnetic field orthogonal to the direction of the zig‐zag chains, which is responsible for the internal torques conjugated to the toroidal orders.

Keywords

• magnetoelectricity
• toroidicity
• twisted bilayers