Electrically excited magnetoelastic waves and magnetoacoustic resonance in ferromagnetic films with voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy

Abstract

Ferromagnet-dielectric heterostructures may possess interfacial magnetic anisotropy, which varies with the electric field created in the dielectric interlayer. Such a voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy (VCMA) represents an efficient tool for the excitation of spin waves without the use of microwave magnetic fields. In ferromagnets with a significant magnetoelastic coupling between spins and strains, however, the magnetization precession in the spin wave induces elastic vibrations. Here we report micromagnetoelastic simulations of the coupled spin and acoustic dynamics generated in the thick Fe film brought into contact with an MgO nanolayer subjected to a microwave voltage. It is found that the electrically induced periodic modulation of VCMA gives rise to the excitation of both spin and elastic waves in the magnetostrictive Fe film. Remarkably, the magnetoelastic coupling makes it possible to generate propagating spin waves having frequencies well below the ferromagnetic resonance frequency. Furthermore, when the voltage frequency approaches a value ${\ensuremath{\nu}}^{*}$ at which the dispersion relations of pure spin and transverse elastic waves cross, the excitation of traveling magnetoelastic waves with a specific hybrid dispersion occurs in the Fe film. To explain the variety of observed phenomena, we propose a generalized dispersion relation for magnetoelastic waves, which accounts for a possible difference between the wave numbers of their magnetic and elastic components. The analysis of the simulation data also reveals that frequency dependencies of the amplitudes of magnetic oscillations and elastic vibrations display significant anomalies around the crossing-point frequency ${\ensuremath{\nu}}^{*}$, which originate from the electrically induced magnetoacoustic resonance.