Parametric excitation of spin waves in ferromagnets by longitudinal pumping localized in space

Abstract

The equations of motion for the slowly varying complex amplitudes of spin waves parametrically excited by a localized pumping magnetic field have been derived. A solution of these equations satisfying given boundary and initial conditions has been obtained. The energy dissipated by spin waves decreases with the pumping intensity beyond a certain pumping power, which can be termed the regeneration threshold. The losses vanish and change sign at the instability threshold. Both thresholds depend heavily on the linear dimension L of the pumping zone, increasing with decreasing L. Owing to the regeneration process, the dissipation length of spin waves increases without bound as the pumping power approaches the instability threshold. Consequently, perturbations of a uniform state due to the boundary penetrate throughout the pumping zone, regardless of the dimension L. As a result, the full pattern of parametric instability is strongly affected by the zone boundary: 1) the spatial distribution of wave amplitudes becomes nonuniform everywhere inside the zone; 2) the amplitude growth rate in the unstable regime decreases at all points when perturbations due to the boundary reach these points; 3) the instability threshold is independent of the spin-wave frequency offset from the parametric resonance frequency. The calculated minimum instability threshold as a function of the bias magnetic field (the “butterfly” curve) changes shape with L, in agreement with the available experimental data.