Revealing ultra-strong magnon-photon coupling in a polar antiferromagnet Fe2Mo3O8 by time domain terahertz spectroscopy

Abstract: Strong coupling between magnon and electromagnetic wave can lead to the formation of a coupled spinphoton quasiparticle named as magnon-polariton. The phenomenon is well studied for ferromagnetic systems inside microwave cavities in recent years. However, formation of magnon-polariton is rarely seen for an antiferromagnet (AFM) because the strong coupling condition is not easily fulfilled. Here we present time-domain terahertz measurement on a multiferroic polar antiferromagnet Fe2Mo3O8. We find clearly beating between two modes at frequencies above and below the electric-active magnon frequency below TN, which we assign to the formation of AFM magnon-polariton. An ultra-strong spin-photon coupling effect is derived based on the energy level splitting. However, the AFM magnon-polariton is absent in the frequency domain measurement. Our work reveals that the coherent magnon formation driven by the ultrashort THz pulse provides a new way to detect polariton mode splitting.