Boltzmann transport theory of magnon-exciton drag

Abstract

We develop a microscopic theory of magnon-exciton drag effect in a bilayer van der Waals antiferromagnetic semiconductor CrSBr. Effective exciton-magnon coupling arises from an orbital mechanism: Magnons tilt the layer magnetizations, enabling charge carrier tunneling that mixes intra- and interlayer excitons and thereby modulate the exciton energy. We derive the effective Hamiltonian of exciton-magnon coupling, based on our calculation of the magnon spectrum taking into account short-range exchange interaction between Cr-ion spins, single-ion anisotropy, and long-range dipole-dipole interactions. The latter produces a negative group velocity of magnons at small wavevectors. We show that despite rather small renormalization of exciton's energy and effective mass by the exciton-magnon interaction, the three key two-magnon processes: exciton-magnon scattering, two-magnon absorption by exciton, and two-magnon emission are highly efficient. By solving the Boltzmann kinetic equation, we evaluate short exciton-magnon scattering time which is in the sub-ps range and strongly decreases with the increase of magnon population. Hence, exciton-magnon scattering is likely to be dominant over other scattering processes related to the exciton-phonon and exciton-disorder interactions. We demonstrate that magnons can efficiently drag excitons, resulting in a large and nearly isotropic exciton propagation that can significantly exceed the intrinsic anisotropic diffusion. Our results provide a theoretical basis for recent observations of anomalous exciton transport in CrSBr [F. Dirnberger, et al., Nat. Nano. (2025)] and establish magnon-exciton drag as a powerful mechanism for controlling exciton propagation in magnetic systems.

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