Spin-wave Research Articles

Magnetic-field controlled on-off switchable non-reciprocal negative refractive index in non-Hermitian photon-magnon hybrid systems

Photon-magnon coupling, where electromagnetic waves interact with spin waves, and negative refraction, which bends the direction of electromagnetic waves unnaturally, constitute critical foundations and advancements in the realms of optics, spintronics, and quantum information technology. Here, we explore a magnetic-field-controlled, on-off switchable, non-reciprocal negative refractive index within a non-Hermitian photon-magnon hybrid system. By integrating an yttrium iron garnet film with an inverted split-ring resonator, we discover pronounced negative refractive index driven by the system’s non-Hermitian properties. This phenomenon exhibits unique non-reciprocal behavior dependent on the signal’s propagation direction. Our analytical model sheds light on the crucial interplay between coherent and dissipative coupling, significantly altering permittivity and permeability’s imaginary components, crucial for negative refractive index’s emergence. This work pioneers new avenues for employing negative refractive index in photon-magnon hybrid systems, signaling substantial advancements in quantum hybrid systems.

Antiferromagnetic standing spin waves generated in NiO thin films by short strain pulses

Antiferromagnetic standing spin waves generated in NiO thin films by short strain pulses

Characterizing the diffuse continuum excitations in the classical spin liquid h−YMnO3

We extend previous inelastic neutron scattering results on the geometrically frustrated antiferromagnet hexagonal-YMnO3, which has been suggested to belong to the class of classical spin liquids. We expand the energy transfer range of the diffuse signal up to 6.9 meV within a wide temperature range around the ordering temperature, TN. The two distinct diffuse signals in the a−b plane, the signal localized at Γ′ and the scattering intensity connecting Γ′ points over the M′, are shown to be only weakly energy dependent. In addition, an external magnetic field of up to 10.5 T applied along c is shown to have no effect on the diffuse signal. In the orthogonal scattering plane, the signals are shown to be dependent on l only through the magnetic form factor, showing that the correlations are purely two-dimensional, and supporting the origin of this to be the frustrated Mn3+ triangles. This result is corroborated by atomistic spin dynamics simulations showing similar scattering vector and temperature behaviors. Lastly, data for the spin wave scattering in the (h,0,l) plane allow for a discussion of the magnetic ground state where better agreement is found between the data and an ordered structure of the Γ1 or Γ3 symmetry, albeit crystal electric field arguments dismiss the Γ1 as a possibility. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Spin waves and orbital contribution to ferromagnetism in a topological metal

Honeycomb and kagome lattices can host propagating excitations with non-trivial topology as defined by their evolution along closed paths in momentum space. Excitations on such lattices can also be momentum-independent, and the associated flat bands are of interest due to strong interactions between heavy quasiparticles. Here, we report the discovery — using circularly polarized X-rays for the unambiguous isolation of magnetic signals — of a nearly flat spin-wave band and large (compared to elemental iron) orbital moment in the metallic ferromagnet Fe3Sn2 with compact AB-stacked kagome bilayers. As a function of out-of-plane momentum, the nearly flat optical mode and the global rotation symmetry-restoring acoustic mode are out of phase, consistent with a bilayer exchange coupling that is larger than the already large in-plane couplings. The defining units of this topological metal are therefore triangular lattices of octahedral iron clusters rather than weakly coupled kagome planes. The spin waves are strongly damped when compared to elemental iron, opening the topic of topological boson–fermion interactions for deeper exploration within this material platform.

Role of voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy in the recent development of magnonics and spintronics

With significant recent progress in the thin film deposition and nanofabrication technology, a number of physical phenomena occur at the interfaces of magnetic thin films, and their heterostructures have been discovered. Consequently, the electric field-induced modulation of those interfacial properties mediated through spin–orbit coupling promises to develop magnetic material based smarter, faster, miniaturized, energy efficient spintronic devices. Among them, the electric field-induced modification of interfacial magnetic anisotropy, popularly termed as voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy (VCMA), has attracted special attention because of its salient features. This article is devoted to reviewing the recent development of magnonics, which deals with collective precessional motion of ordered magnetic spins, i.e., spin waves (SWs), and skyrmions with chiral spin textures, with VCMA, including the perspectives of this research field. Starting with a broad introduction, the key features of VCMA and its advantages over other electric field-induced methods are highlighted. These are followed by describing the state-of-the-art of VCMA, and various other direct and indirect electric field-induced methods for magnetization reversal; controlling skyrmion dynamics; excitation, manipulation, and channeling of SWs; and tailoring magnonic bands. The critical challenges, their possible solutions, and future perspectives of this field are thoroughly discussed throughout the article.

Detection of geometric phases in spin waves using nitrogen vacancy centers

Detection of geometric phases in spin waves using nitrogen vacancy centers

Bragg resonances in the yttrium iron garnet – platinum – yttrium iron garnet layered structure

We studied theoretically the interaction between the spin current in a conductor with a strong spin-orbit coupling (platinum, Pt) and the spin wave in yttrium iron garnet ferromagnetic layers (YIG) with periodic thickness modulation under conditions of Bragg resonances and interlayer coupling. It is shown that in the YIG/Pt/YIG sandwich structure the conditions for two Bragg resonances in the first Brillouin area in the spin wave spectrum are fulfilled. The spin current in Pt allows frequency tuning of the resonances and control the depth of the spin wave band gap corresponding to the resonance conditions.

Magnon confinement in a nanomagnonic waveguide by a magnetic Moiré superlattice

The study of moiré superlattices has revealed intriguing phenomena in electronic systems, including unconventional superconductivity and ferromagnetism observed in magic-angle bilayer graphene. This approach has recently been adapted to the field of magnonics. In this Letter, we investigate the confinement of spin waves in a nanomagnonic waveguide integrated on top of a magnetic moiré superlattice. Our numerical analysis reveals a magnonic flatband at the center of the Brillouin zone, created by a 3.5° twist in the moiré superlattice. The flatband, characterized by a high magnon density of states and a zero group velocity, allows for the confinement of magnons within the AB stacking region. The flatband results from the mode anticrossing of several different magnon bands, covering a wavevector range of nearly 40 rad/μm and a 166 nm wide spatial distribution of the magnon trapping in the waveguide. Our results pave the way for nanomagnonic devices and circuits based on spin-wave trapping in magnon waveguides.

Breaking Surface-Plasmon Excitation Constraint via Surface Spin Waves.

Surface plasmons in two-dimensional (2D) electron systems have attracted great attention for their promising light-matter applications. However, the excitation of a surface plasmon, in particular, transverse-electric (TE) surface plasmon, remains an outstanding challenge due to the difficulty to conserve energy and momentum simultaneously in the normal 2D materials. Here we show that the TE surface plasmons ranging from gigahertz to terahertz regime can be effectively excited and manipulated in a hybrid dielectric, 2D material, and magnet structure. The essential physics is that the surface spin wave supplements an additional freedom of surface plasmon excitation and thus greatly enhances the electric field in the 2D medium. Based on widely used magnetic materials like yttrium iron garnet and manganese difluoride, we further show that the plasmon excitation manifests itself as a measurable dip in the reflection spectrum of the hybrid system while the dip position and the dip depth can be well controlled by an electric gating on the 2D layer and an external magnetic field. Our findings should bridge the fields of low-dimensional physics, plasmonics, and spintronics and open a novel route to integrate plasmonic and spintronic devices.

Spin Wave Chiral Scattering by Skyrmion Lattice in Ferromagnetic Nanotubes

Spin Wave Chiral Scattering by Skyrmion Lattice in Ferromagnetic Nanotubes

Robust theory of thermal activation in magnetic systems with Gilbert damping

Magnetic systems can exhibit thermally activated transitions whose timescales are often described by an Arrhenius law. However, robust predictions of such timescales are only available for certain cases. Inspired by the harmonic theory of Langer, we derive a general activation rate for multidimensional spin systems. Assuming local thermal equilibrium in the initial minimum and deriving an expression for the flow of probability density along the unstable dynamical mode at the saddle point, we obtain the expression for the activation rate that is a function of the Gilbert damping parameter, α. We find that this expression remains valid for the physically relevant regime of α≪1. When the activation is characterized by a coherent reorientation of all spins, we gain insight into the prefactor of the Arrhenius law by writing it in terms of spin wave frequencies and, for the case of a finite spin chain, obtain an expression that depends exponentially on the square of the system size indicating a break-down of the Meyer-Neldel rule. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Spin-wave mode coupling in the presence of the demagnetizing field in cobalt-permalloy magnonic crystals

We present the results of studies on the non-uniform frequency shift of spin wave spectrum in a two-dimensional magnonic crystal of cobalt/permalloy under the influence of external magnetic field changes. We investigate the phenomenon of coupling of modes and, as a consequence, their hybridization. By taking advantage of the fact that compressing the crystal structure along the direction of the external magnetic field leads to an enhancement of the demagnetizing field, we analyse its effect on the frequency shift of individual modes depending on their concentration in Co. We show that the consequence of this enhancement is a shift in the coupling of modes towards higher magnetic fields. This provides a potential opportunity to design which pairs of modes and in what range of fields hybridization will occur.

Magnetization States and Coupled Spin-Wave Modes in Concentric Double Nanorings.

Concentric multiple nanorings have previously been fabricated and investigated mainly for their different static magnetization states. Here, we present a theoretical analysis for the magnetization dynamics in double nanorings arranged concentrically, where there is coupling across a nonmagnetic spacer due to the long-range dipole-dipole interactions. We employ a microscopic, or Hamiltonian-based, formalism to study the discrete spin waves that exist in the magnetic states where the individual rings may be in either a vortex or an onion state. Numerical results are shown for the frequencies and the spatial amplitudes (with relative phase included) of the spin-wave modes. Cases are considered in which the magnetic materials of the rings are the same (taken to be permalloy) or two different materials such as permalloy and cobalt. The dependence of these properties on the mean radial position of the spacer were studied, showing, in most cases, the existence of two distinct transition fields. The special cases, where the radial spacer width becomes very small (less than 1 nm) were analyzed to study direct interfaces between dissimilar materials and/or effects of interfacial exchange interactions such as Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yoshida coupling. These spin-wave properties may be of importance for magnetic switching devices and sensors.

Lorentz-covariant spinor wave packet

We propose a novel formulation for a manifestly Lorentz-covariant spinor wave-packet basis. The traditional definition of the spinor wave packet is problematic due to its unavoidable mixing with other wave packets under Lorentz transformations. Our approach resolves this inherent mixing issue. The wave packet we develop constitutes a complete set, enabling the expansion of a free spinor field while maintaining Lorentz covariance. Additionally, we present a Lorentz-invariant expression for zero-point energy. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Steerable current-driven emission of spin waves in magnetic vortex pairs.

The efficient excitation of spin waves is a key challenge in the realization of magnonic devices. We demonstrate current-driven generation of spin waves in antiferromagnetically coupled magnetic vortices. We use time-resolved x-ray microscopy to directly image the emission of spin waves upon the application of alternating currents flowing directly through the magnetic stack. Micromagnetic simulations allow us to identify the current-driven Oersted field as the main origin of excitation, in contrast to spin-transfer torques. In our case, these internal Oersted fields have an orders of magnitude higher spin-wave excitation efficiency than commonly used stripline antennas. For magnetostrictive materials, we furthermore demonstrate that the direction of magnon propagation can be steered by increasing the excitation amplitude, which modifies the underlying magnetization profile through an additional anisotropy. The demonstrated methods allow for the efficient and tunable excitation of spin waves, marking a substantial advance concerning the design of magnonic devices.

Discrete Laplacian thermostat for flocks and swarms: the fully conserved Inertial Spin Model

Abstract Experiments on bird flocks and midge swarms reveal that these natural systems are well described by an active theory in which conservation laws play a crucial role. By building a symplectic structure that couples the particles’ velocities to the generator of their internal rotations (spin), the Inertial Spin Model (ISM) reinstates a second-order temporal dynamics that captures many phenomenological traits of flocks and swarms. The reversible structure of the ISM predicts that the total spin is a constant of motion, the central conservation law responsible for all the novel dynamical features of the model. However, fluctuations and dissipation introduced in the original model to make it relax, violate the spin conservation law, so that the ISM aligns with the biophysical phenomenology only within finite-size regimes, beyond which the overdamped dynamics characteristic of the Vicsek model takes over. Here, we introduce a novel version of the ISM, in which the irreversible terms needed to relax the dynamics strictly respect the conservation of the spin. We perform a numerical investigation of the fully conservative model, exploring both the fixed-network case, which belongs to the equilibrium class of Model G, and the active case, characterized by self-propulsion of the agents and an out-of-equilibrium reshuffling of the underlying interaction network. Our simulations not only capture the correct spin wave phenomenology of the ordered phase, but they also yield dynamical critical exponents in the near-ordering phase that agree very well with the theoretical predictions.

Interaction of acoustic waves with spin waves using a GHz operating GaN/Si SAW device with a Ni/NiFeSi layer between its IDTs.

A two port surface acoustic wave (SAW) device was developed to be used for the control and excitation via spin waves (SW). The structure was manufactured using advanced nanolithography techniques, on GaN/Si, enabling fundamental Rayleigh interdigitated transducer (IDT) resonances in GHz frequency range. The ferromagnetic resonance of the magnetostrictive Ni/NiFeSi layer placed between the IDTs of the SAW device can be tuned to the SAW resonance frequency by magnetic fields. Using structures with finger and interdigit spacing of 170 nm and 100 nm, fundamental Rayleigh IDT resonance frequencies of 6.4 and 10.4 GHz have been obtained. Coupling of SAW to SW was demonstrated through transmission measurements at the fundamental Rayleigh frequencies in a magnetic field, μ0H from -280 to +280 mT, at different angles (θ) between the SAW propagation direction and the magnetic field direction. For the 6.4 GHz resonator a maximum decrease of about 1.2 dB occurred in |S21|, at μ0H = 30 mT and at θ = 45. Time-gated processing of the frequency domain raw data was used to remove the direct electromagnetic cross talk and triple transit effects. Nonreciprocity associated to the coupling was analyzed for the two SAW structures. The quantitative influence of the magnetic field strength on the phase of the transmission parameters is also presented.

Fingerprinting Magnetic States In Interconnected Nanoring Arrays via Spin Wave Spectra

Fingerprinting Magnetic States In Interconnected Nanoring Arrays via Spin Wave Spectra

Nonreciprocal damping of spin waves propagating in magnetic domain walls induced by Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction

The nonreciprocity of spin waves refers to the phenomenon that spin waves propagating in opposite directions display different features. This phenomen becomes a fundamental requirement for implementing magnon logic architectures. The nonreciprocal transportion of spin waves induced by Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) has been studied extensively. It is characterized by a shift of spin-wave dispersion. Here we report another feature of the DMI-induced nonreciprocity, i.e., the nonreciprocal spin wave damping. We find that the spin waves propagating with opposite wave vectors in magnetic domain wall have different damping, which is frequency dependent and especially evident in low frequancy range. For spin waves with sufficient low frequencies (around 1 GHz), the damping nonreciprocity is so extreme that spin waves can transport only in one direction, thus realizing the spin-wave diode function. The theoretical predictions are validated by micromagnetic simulations. The findings in this work points out a new feature of DMI-induced spin wave nonreciprocity and may be exploited for designing novel magnonic devices.

Unidirectional propagation of zero-momentum magnons

We report on experimental observation of unidirectional propagation of zero-momentum magnons in synthetic antiferromagnet consisting of strained CoFeB/Ru/CoFeB trilayer. Inherent non-reciprocity of spin waves in synthetic antiferromagnets with uniaxial anisotropy results in smooth and monotonous dispersion relation around Gamma point, where the direction of the phase velocity is reversed, while the group velocity direction is conserved. The experimental observation of this phenomenon by intensity-, phase-, and time-resolved Brillouin light scattering microscopy is corroborated by analytical models and micromagnetic simulations.