Backward volume wave solitons in a yttrium iron garnet film (invited) (abstract)

Abstract

Solitons are nonlinear propagating wave pulses that preserve their shape without spreading. Recently, microwave envelope solitons have been observed in thin yttrium iron garnet (YIG) films for magnetostatic surface wave and forward volume wave configurations. In this work, we report the first observation of microwave envelope of magnetostatic backward volume waves (MSBVW) for an in-plane magnetized YIG film with waves propagating parallel to the magnetization direction. Both soliton profiles and the nonlinear peak power response were observed. The experiments were conducted using a microstrip magnetostatic wave delay line structure. A single crystal YIG film of 7.2 μm thickness, 2 mm×15 mm in size, and with unpinned surface spins was magnetized in-plane by a static external field of 1343 Oe along the long 15 mm edge. The 10 GHz ferromagnetic resonance linewidth of the film was 0.6 Oe. Square microwave pulses with pulse widths from 2 to 200 ns and a carrier frequency of 5.78 GHz were launched parallel to the field through a microstrip antenna. The output signal was received by a second microstrip antenna placed 4 mm downstream and analyzed in the time domain with a microwave transition analyzer. Envelope soliton behavior evident from the time resolved waveforms was observed for various input-power/pulse-width combinations. At relatively low power levels, one sees a broad output signal with a peak power increasing linearly with the input power. As the input power is increased above some threshold, a sharp soliton pulse emerges and the peak power increases more rapidly with input power than in the low power regime. The threshold varies with pulse width, as expected for solitons. A further increase of the input power produces multiple soliton profiles and a corresponding drop in the peak power. These results clearly demonstrate the existence of MSBVW solitons in YIG films. Dr. J. D. Adam of Westinghouse is acknowledged for providing the YIG films. This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation, Grant No. DMR-8921761 and by the U. S. Army Research Office, Grant No. DAAL03-91-G-0327.