Coherent Control of Magnonic Spin Transport in an Antiferromagnetic Insulator.

The spin-1/2 of an electron makes it an archetypal two-level system and inspires the description of other two-level systems using an analogous pseudospin. The quantized spin excitations of an ordered antiferromagnet are such pairs of spin-up and -down magnons and can be characterized by a magnonic pseudospin, which has eluded experiments thus far. The similarity between electronic spin and magnonic pseudospin has triggered the prediction of exciting phenomena like emergent spin-orbit coupling and topological states in antiferromagnetic magnonics. Here, we report experiments demonstrating coherent control of magnon spin transport and pseudospin dynamics in a thin film of the antiferromagnetic insulator hematite. We quantitatively explain our experiments in terms of diffusive magnon transport and a coherent precession of the magnon pseudospin caused by the easy-plane anisotropy and the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. This experimental observation can be viewed as the magnonic analogue of the electronic Hanle effect and the Datta-Das transistor, unlocking the high potential of antiferromagnetic magnonics towards the realization of rich electronics-inspired phenomena.