Unconventional spin-phonon coupling via the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction

Spin-phonon coupling (SPC) plays a critical role in numerous intriguing phenomena of transition metal oxides (TMOs). In 3d and 4d TMOs, the coupling between spin and lattice degrees of freedom is known to originate from the exchange interaction. On the other hand, the origin of SPC in 5d TMOs remains to be elucidated. To address this issue, we measured the phonon spectra of the 5d pyrochlore iridate Y2Ir2O7 using optical spectroscopy. Three infrared-active phonons soften below the Neel temperature of T-N approximate to 170 K, indicating the existence of strong SPC. Simulations using density functional theory showed that the coupling is closely related to the Ir-O-Ir bond angle. A tight-binding model analysis reveals that this SPC is mainly mediated by the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction rather than the usual exchange interaction. We suggest that such unconventional SPC may be realized in other 5d TMOs with non-collinear magnetic order.