Observation and Control of Spontaneous Magnon Emission from Spin Ensembles in 2D Hexagonal Boron Nitride

Abstract

Hybrid systems consisting of color centers and magnetic materials provide an appealing solid-state platform for advancing the burgeoning quantum technological revolution. Exploring novel coupling mechanisms between optically active spin defects and quantum degrees of freedom is directly relevant in this context. Here, we report observation and control of spontaneous magnon emission from boron-vacancy centers in 2D hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), an unconventional qubit-magnon dipole coupling channel that dominates in the near-zero temperature limit. The spontaneous magnon emission process starts to be overshadowed by thermal magnon effect as temperature increases, reflecting the crossover from an emission-dominated, effectively cold magnon reservoir to a thermally occupied spin bath where absorption and stimulated processes restore balance. By increasing the spin defect density, we further present that spontaneous magnon emission into a common spin bath could help establish quantum correlations in dense hBN spin ensembles. Our results are quantitatively captured by detailed theoretical modeling, bringing insights into understanding qubit-magnon coupling, correlated spin dynamics, and many-body physics of color centers in the quantum regime.