Magnon corner states in twisted bilayer honeycomb magnets

The study of symmetry-protected topological phases of matter has been extended from fermionic electron systems to various bosonic systems. Bosonic topological magnon phases in magnetic materials have received much attention because of their exotic uncharged topologically protected boundary modes and the potential for dissipationless magnonics and spintronic applications. Here, we establish twisted bilayer honeycomb magnets as a platform for hosting second-order topological magnon insulators (SOTMIs) without fine-tuning. We employ a simple, minimal Heisenberg spin model to describe misaligned bilayer sheets of honeycomb ferromagnetic mag-nets with a large commensurate twist angle. We found that the higher-order topology in this bilayer system shows a significant dependence on the interlayer exchange coupling. The SOTMI, featuring topologically protected magnon corner states that go beyond the conventional bulk-boundary correspondence, appears for ferromagnetic interlayer couplings, while the twisted bilayer exhibits a nodal phase in the case of antiferromagnetic interlayer coupling. At last, relevance to twisted bilayer CrI3 is also discussed.

Automated summary

In this study, twisted bilayer honeycomb magnets were found to host second-order topological magnon insulators (SOTMIs) without fine-tuning. These SOTMIs exhibit unique, topologically protected magnon corner states that go beyond conventional bulk-boundary correspondence. The interlayer exchange coupling in the bilayer system plays a significant role in determining its higher-order topology.