Surface Magnon Propagation in a van der Waals Antiferromagnet

The recently developed van der Waals magnets provide a promising platform for spintronics and magnonics. Here, we report the observation of surface magnon propagation in the van der Waals antiferromagnet CrSBr. We find a nearly unidirectional propagation of antiferromagnetic magnon modes, which emerge near the anticrossing of the optical and acoustic magnon bands, in agreement with our theory of magnetostatic waves in antiferromagnets. The propagation direction can be reversed by switching the magnetic field. The observed antiferromagnetic magnons operate in the gigahertz regime due to the weak interlayer exchange coupling. Our results open the pathway for nonreciprocal magnonic applications based on van der Waals antiferromagnets at easily accessible microwave frequencies.