​Topological magnons, analogous to the topologically nontrivial electronic band structure, have attracted significant interest in recent years. Materials exhibiting topological magnons showcase various novel phenomena, such as the magnon Hall effect and chiral motion of spin current on the edge, presenting great potential for dissipationless spintronic devices.

Investigating its spin dynamic properties is essential, so researchers from Fudan University in Shanghai have come to ISIS to conduct an inelastic neutron scattering experiment using our instrument, MERLIN. The team hopes to verify different theoretical perspectives and apply suitable calculation methods to model the measured excitation spectra of this material through this experiment. "Recently, there is considerable interest in topological magnons in the ​condensed matter physics community," says Professor Jun Zhao. "Many techniques have probed our samples, but until now, we did not have a complete understanding of their physical properties."

"They have observed well-defined topological magnetic excitations from the MERLIN experiment, which will throw light to understand the topological behaviour of a Cu-based kagomé lattice", explains MERLIN Instrument Scientist, Dr Devashibhai Adroja. “The results obtained will be used to test the predictions of various theoretical models on topological magnons."​