Magnetochiral nonreciprocity of volume spin wave propagation in chiral-lattice ferromagnets

In magnetic materials with chiral crystal structure, it has been predicted that quasiparticle flows propagating parallel and antiparallel to the external magnetic field can show different propagating character, with its sign of nonreciprocity dependent on the chirality of the underlying bulk crystal lattice. This unique phenomenon, termed magnetochiral nonreciprocity, has previously been demonstrated for the propagating light and conduction electrons but seldom for other quasiparticles. In this study, we report the experimental observation of magnetochiral nonreciprocity of propagating magnons for a chiral-lattice ferromagnet Cu₂OSeO₃ by employing the spin wave spectroscopy. We found that the sign of nonreciprocity is reversed for the opposite chirality of crystal, and also directly identified the wave-number-linear term in the spin wave dispersion associated with the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction as the origin of observed nonreciprocity. Our present results pave a route for the design of efficient spin wave diode based on the bulk crystallographic symmetry breaking and also offer a unique method to evaluate the magnitude of DM interaction in chiral-lattice bulk compounds.