Nonstationary domain wall dynamics in almost compensated ferrimagnets: a novel scenario

Abstract

Topological spin structures, such as domain walls (DW) and skyrmions, have intriguing features and can play a key role in spintronics. In both ferromagnets (FM) and antiferromagnets (AFM) a DW, driven by applied torque, behaves like a solid particle, which can be described by collective variables: DW position and the angle of the magnetic order vector, albeit the dynamic properties are dramatically different. For an AFM the DW energy as a function of its momentum is the same as that of a standard relativistic particle (Fig. 1), because of the Lorentz invariance of the AFM dynamics [1]. For FMs the gyrotropic dynamic term couples two degrees of freedom that slows down a FM DW and results in the periodic dependence of the DW energy on momentum (Fig. 1). Thus, the AFM DW is stable up to higher speeds (~10km/s in contrast to ~100m/s for FMs).We demonstrate that the DW dynamics in ferrimagnetic (FiM) materials near the spin compensation point is entirely different from the FM and AFM cases [2]. The dispersion law for FiM DWs exhibits two crossed branches with opposite group velocities (Fig. 1), where each branch contains an endpoint [3]. Driven by a field-like torque, a FiM DW accelerates to a higher speed and momentum than its FM counterpart [4] and can reach the endpoint. Wherein it falls into a region of instability, where the internal dynamics of the DW is excited, and the collective variables approach fails. We show by micromagnetic simulations that the dynamical state of a DW in this case covers a wide frequency range, far beyond the magnon bandgap of a FiM. In this way the FiM DW driven by external field-like torque acts as an efficient source of the spin waves (SW), propagating out of the DW region. We show that by varying the applied torque and spin uncompensation of a FiM one can reach three qualitatively different regimes of the excited SWs: i) frequency-comb spectrum, shown in Fig.2, ii) chaotic behavior of the DW with the broad SW spectrum, iii) double-frequency SW excitation.  Fig.1 Dependence of the energy on momentum for a DW in FM, AFM (gray), and FiM near compensation point (blue) nano-strips.  Fig.2 Spectra of the dynamic state inside the DW (a) and magnons emitted outside (b).