Electrically Controllable Crystal Chirality Magneto-Optical Effects in Collinear Antiferromagnets

Abstract: The spin chirality, created by magnetic atoms, has been comprehensively understood to generate and control the magneto-optical effects. In comparison, the role of the crystal chirality that relates to nonmagnetic atoms has received much less attention. Here, we theoretically discover the crystal chirality magneto-optical (CCMO) effects, which depend on the chirality of crystal structures that originates from the rearrangement of nonmagnetic atoms. We show that the CCMO effects exist in many collinear antiferromagnets, such as RuO${2}$ and CoNb${3}$S$_{6}$, which has a local and global crystal chirality, respectively. The key character of the CCMO effects is the sign change if the crystal chirality reverses. The magnitudes of the CCMO spectra can be effectively manipulated by reorienting the N\'eel vector with the help of an external electric field, and the spectral integrals are found to be proportional to magnetocrystalline anisotropy energy.