Two-magnon relaxation reversal in ferrite spheres

Abstract

The reversal of two-magnon relaxation associated with linear scattering of oscillations of uniform magnetization precession from sample nonuniformities is studied theoretically and experimentally in ferrite spheres of yttrium iron garnet (YIG). Relaxation reversal is performed by parametric phase conjugation of dipole-exchange spin waves formed as a result of scattering of uniform precession from inhomogeneities. As a result of two-magnon backward scattering of dipole-exchange spin waves with a certain time delay, magnetization oscillations are renewed with an amplitude that could exceed the initial amplitude of uniform precession. The relaxation reversal is due to crystallographic anisotropy of the sample and is manifested most strongly when a YIG sphere is magnetized along the intermediate axis [110]. Experiments were carried out on YIG spheres of diameter 0.65–1.05 mm for a parallel pumping frequency ωp/2π ≈ 9.4 GHz, which is about twice the uniform precession frequency. The maximal delay time for the restored signal of uniform precession was about 2 μs, while the maximal amplitude exceeded the initial uniform precession amplitude by a factor of about 5. The “latent” relaxation parameters of ferrites, e.g., the natural ferromagnetic resonance linewidth associated with many-particle processes and the linewidth associated with two-magnon scattering at bulk nonuniformities, are determined experimentally.