Concept of the Optomagnonic Logic Operation

Abstract

We present the concept of the optomagnonic logic gate, where interference of spin waves excited by femtosecond laser pulses at multiple points by the inverse Faraday effect in a bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet film plays a decisive role. The resulting spin-wave distribution is determined by constructive and destructive interference, which is controlled by the polarization of laser sources. A variable platform with a spatial light modulator is used to control the overall spin-wave distribution by manipulating the arrangement of the local spin-wave sources. We demonstrate the experimental optical excitation of backwards volume magnetostatic spin waves at multiple points and use wavelet analysis and micromagnetic numeric simulations to analyze them. Simulations provide an excellent agreement with the experimental data and are further used to model the magnon logical gate (xnor) based on optically excited spin-wave interference.