We report the optical detection of magnons with a broad range of wavevectors in magnetic insulator Y3Fe5O12 thin films by proximate nitrogen-vacancy (NV) single-spin sensors. Through multi-magnon scattering processes, the excited magnons generate fluctuating magnetic fields at the NV electron spin resonance frequencies, which accelerate the relaxation of NV spins. By measuring the variation of the emitted spin-dependent photoluminescence of the NV centers, magnons with variable wavevectors up to ~ 5 x 10^7 m-1 can be optically accessed, providing an alternative perspective to reveal the underlying spin behaviors in magnetic systems. Our results highlight the significant opportunities offered by NV single-spin quantum sensors in exploring nanoscale spin dynamics of emergent spintronic materials.
Thermalization of a parametrically driven magnon gas leading to the formation of a Bose-Einstein condensate at the bottom of a spin-wave spectrum was studied by time- and wavevector-resolved Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy. It has been found that the condensation is preceded by the conversion of initially pumped magnons into a second group of frequency degenerated magnons, which appear due to parametrically stimulated scattering of the initial magnons to a short-wavelength spectral region. In contrast to the first magnon group, which wavevectors are orthogonal to the wavevectors of the…
Anisotropic wavevector-dependent damping of thickness-quantized magnons
Rheinland-Pfälzische Technische Universität Kaiserslautern-Landau（莱茵兰-普法尔茨技术大学凯泽斯劳滕-兰道校区）；University of Vienna, Faculty of Physics（维也纳大学物理学院）；University of Western Australia, Department of Physics M013（西澳大学物理系）
Magnetic skyrmions in bulk crystals are line-like topologically protected spin textures. They allow for the propagation of magnons along the skyrmion line but are localized inside the skyrmion line. Analogous to the vortex line, these propagating modes are the Kelvin modes of a skyrmion line. In crystals without an inversion center, it is known that the magnon dispersion in the ferromagnetic state is asymmetric in the wavevector. It is natural to expect that the dispersion of the Kelvin modes is also asymmetric with respect to the wavevector. We study the Kelvin modes of a skyrmion line in the…
The quantum excitations of the collective magnetization dynamics in a ferromagnet (F) - magnons - enable spin transport without an associated charge current. This pure spin current can be transferred to electrons in an adjacent non-magnetic conductor (N). We evaluate the finite temperature noise of the magnon-mediated spin current injected into N by an adjacent F driven by a coherent microwave field. We find that the dipolar interaction leads to squeezing of the magnon modes giving them wavevector dependent non-integral spin, which directly manifests itself in the shot noise. For temperatures …
Electrical magnon spectroscopy with foundry-fabricated nanoscale magnetic tunnel junctions
Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden–Rossendorf（亥姆霍兹德累斯顿-罗斯多夫中心）；Technische Universität Dresden（德累斯顿工业大学）；Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay（巴黎萨克雷大学CNRS纳米科学与工程研究中心）；GlobalFoundries Dresden Module One LLC & Co. KG (GF)（格芯德累斯顿第一模块有限责任公司及合伙公司）
We present the observation of a complete bandgap and collective spin wave excitation in two-dimensional magnonic crystals comprised of arrays of nanoscale antidots and nanodots, respectively. Considering that the frequencies dealt with here fall in the microwave band, these findings can be used for the development of suitable magnonic metamaterials and spin wave based signal processing. We also present the application of a numerical procedure, to compute the dispersion relations of spin waves for any high symmetry direction in the first Brillouin zone. The results obtained from this procedure …
We have investigated theoretically band structure of spin waves in magnonic crystals with periodicity in one-(1D), two- (2D) and three-dimensions (3D). We have solved Landau-Lifshitz equation with the use of plane wave method, finite element method in frequency domain and micromagnetic simulations in time domain to find the dynamics of spin waves and spectrum of their eigenmodes. The spin wave spectra were calculated in linear approximation. In this paper we show usefulness of these methods in calculations of various types of spin waves. We demonstrate the surface character of the Damon-Eshbac…
We study experimentally the possibility to utilize pulses of pure spin current, produced via the nonlocal spin injection mechanism, to generate short packets of spin waves propagating in nanoscale magnetic waveguides. The spatially and time-resolved micro-focus Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy measurements demonstrate that the excitation by spin current results in extremely fast transient response, enabling efficient generation of short spin-wave packets with duration down to a few nanoseconds. The proposed method opens a route for the implementation of high-speed magnonic systems for t…
We theoretically demonstrate linear spin-wave nonreciprocity in a Ni80Fe20 nanostripe waveguide, based on interband magnonic transitions induced by a time-reversal and spatialinversion symmetry breaking magnetic field. An analytical coupled-mode theory of spin waves, developed to describe the transitions which are accompanied by simultaneous frequency and wavevector shifts of the coupled spin waves, is well corroborated by numerical simulations. Our findings could pave the way for the realization of spin-wave isolation and the dynamic control of spin-wave propagation in nanoscale magnonic inte…
Magnonics is a prospective beyond CMOS technology which uses magnons, the quanta of spin waves, for low-power information processing. Many magnonic concepts and devices were recently demonstrated at macro- and microscale, and now these concepts need to be realized at nanoscale. Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy and microscopy (BLS) has become a standard technique for spin wave visualization and characterization, and enabled many pioneering magnonic experiments. However, due to its fundamental limit in maximum detectable magnon momentum, the conventional BLS cannot be used to detect nanos…
Despite the intense amount of attention and huge potential of two-dimensional (2D) magnets for applications in novel magnetic, magneto-optical, magneto-thermal and magneto-electronic devices, there has yet to be a robust strategy developed to systematically understand magnon-magnon (MMI) interactions at finite temperature. In this paper, we present a first-principles theoretical method to introduce the finite temperature magnon-magnon interaction into Heisenberg Hamiltonian through a nonlinear correction energy. The Wick theorem is used to decouple the four-magnon operators to two-magnon order…
Probing the wave-vector gap in nanoscale magnonics
CEITEC BUT, Brno University of Technology（布尔诺理工大学 CEITEC）；Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院材料科学与工程系）；Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences, SUPA, Heriot-Watt University（赫瑞-瓦特大学光子与量子科学研究所）；Department of Quantum Nanoscience, Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, Delft University of Technology（代尔夫特理工大学量子纳米科学系卡弗里纳米科学研究所）；Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy（马克斯·玻恩非线性光学和短脉冲光谱研究所）；Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie（柏林亥姆霍兹材料与能源中心）；Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院化学系）
Magnetic damping is a key metric for emerging technologies based on magnetic nanoparticles, such as spin torque memory and high-resolution biomagnetic imaging. Despite its importance, understanding of magnetic dissipation in nanoscale ferromagnets remains elusive, and the damping is often treated as a phenomenological constant. Here we report the discovery of a giant frequency-dependent nonlinear damping that strongly alters the response of a nanoscale ferromagnet to spin torque and microwave magnetic field. This novel damping mechanism originates from three-magnon scattering that is strongly …
Collinear antiferromagnets (AFs) support two degenerate magnon excitations carrying opposite spin polarizations, by which magnons can function as electrons in various spin-related phenomena. In an insulating ferromagnet(F)/AF/F trilayer, we explore the magnon-mediated interlayer coupling by calculating the magnon thermal energy in the AF as a function of the orientations of the Fs. The effect manifests as an interlayer exchange interaction and a perpendicular magnetic anisotropy; they both depend on temperature and the AF thickness. In particular, the exchange interaction turns out to be antif…
The impact of the longitudinal spin Seebeck effect (LSSE) on the magnon damping in magnetic-insulator/nonmagnetic-metal bilayers was recently discussed in several reports. However, results of those experiments can be blurred by multimode excitation within the measured linewidth. In order to avoid possible intermodal interference, we investigated the damping of a single magnon group in a platinum covered Yttrium Iron Garnet (YIG) film by measurement of the threshold of its parametric excitation. Both dipolar and exchange spin-wave branches were probed. It turned out that the LSSE-related modifi…
Recent investigations of the quantum properties of an antiferromagnet in the spin wave approximation have identified the eigenstates as two-mode squeezed sublattice states. The uniform squeezed vacuum and one-magnon states were shown to display a massive sublattice entanglement. Here we expand this investigation and study the squeezing properties of all sublattice Fock states throughout the magnetic Brillouin zone. We derive the full statistics of the sublattice magnon number with wave number $\vec k$ in the ground state and show that magnons are created in pairs with opposite wavevectors, hen…
Collective lattice dynamics determine essential aspects of condensed matter, such as elastic and thermal properties. These exhibit strong dependence on the length-scale, reflecting the marked wavevector dependence of lattice excitations. The extreme ultraviolet transient grating (EUV TG) approach has demonstrated the potential of accessing a wavevector range corresponding to the 10s of nm length-scale, representing a spatial scale of the highest relevance for fundamental physics and forefront technology, previously inaccessible by optical TG and other inelastic scattering methods. In this manu…
Spin waves involved in three-magnon splitting in synthetic antiferromagnets
Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies（巴黎萨克雷大学，法国国家科学研究中心，纳米科学与技术中心）；SPEC, CEA, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay（物质科学研究中心，法国原子能和替代能源委员会，法国国家科学研究中心，巴黎萨克雷大学）
Magnonics is a research field complementary to spintronics, in which the quanta of spin waves (magnons) replace electrons as information carriers, promising less energy dissipation. The development of ultrafast nanoscale magnonic logic circuits calls for new tools and materials to generate coherent spin waves with frequencies as high, and wavelengths as short, as possible. Antiferromagnets can host spin waves at THz frequencies and are therefore seen as a future platform for the fastest and the least dissipative transfer of information. However, the generation of short-wavelength coherent prop…
Nanomagnets form the building blocks for a gamut of miniaturized energy-efficient devices including data storage, memory, wave-based computing, sensors and biomedical devices. They also offer a span of exotic phenomena and stern challenges. The progress in the magnetization dynamics of single nanomagnets and one- and two-dimensional arrays of nanostructures in the form of dots, antidots, nanoparticles, binary and bicomponent structures and patterned multilayers have been presented. Progress in unconventional and new structures like artificial spin ice and three-dimensional nanomagnets and spin…
We theoretically investigate the role of spin fluctuations in charge transport through a magnetic junction. Motivated by recent experiments that measure a nonlinear dependence of the current on electrical bias, we develop a systematic understanding of the interplay of charge and spin dynamics in nanoscale magnetic junctions. Our model captures two distinct features arising from these fluctuations: magnon-assisted transport and the effect of spin-transfer torque on the magnetoconductance. The latter stems from magnetic misalignment in the junction induced by spin-current fluctuations. As the te…
Epitaxial $\mathrm{Co_2MnSi}$ with intrinsic magnetocrystalline anisotropy as a route to bias-field-free nonlinear half-metal magnonics at the nanoscale
Rheinland-Pfälzische Technische Universität Kaiserslautern-Landau（莱茵兰-普法尔茨技术大学凯泽斯劳滕-兰道）；Université de Lorraine（洛林大学）
We study theoretically domain wall (DW) magnons-elementary collective excitations of magnetic DWs -- in easy-axis layered van der Waals (vdW) antiferromagnets, where they behave as normal modes of coupled spin superfluids. We uncover that, due to spin-charge coupling in vdW magnets, such DW magnons can be activated by voltage-induced torques, thereby providing a path for their low-dissipation and nanoscale excitation. Moreover, the electrical activation and the number of DW magnons at a frequency can be controlled by applying symmetry-breaking static magnetic field, adding tunability of signal…
Magnonics and magnon spintronics aim at the utilization of spin waves and magnons, their quanta, for the construction of wave-based logic networks via the generation of pure all-magnon spin currents and their interfacing with electrical charge transport. The promise of efficient parallel data processing and low power consumption renders this field one of the most promising research areas in spintronics. In this context, the process of parallel parametric amplification, i.e., the conversion of microwave photons into magnons at one half of the microwave frequency, has proven to be a versatile to…
Spin waves offer intriguing novel perspectives for computing and signal processing, since their damping can be lower than the Ohmic losses in conventional CMOS circuits. For controlling the spatial extent and propagation of spin waves on the actual chip, magnetic domain walls show considerable potential as magnonic waveguides. However, low-loss guidance of spin waves with nanoscale wavelengths, in particular around angled tracks, remains to be shown. Here we experimentally demonstrate that such advanced control of propagating spin waves can be obtained using natural features of magnetic order …
We experimentally demonstrate generation of coherent propagating magnons in ultra-thin magnetic-insulator films by spin-orbit torque induced by dc electric current. We show that this challenging task can be accomplished by utilizing magnetic-insulator films with large perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. We demonstrate simple and flexible spin-orbit torque devices, which can be used as highly efficient nanoscale sources of coherent propagating magnons for insulator-based spintronic applications.
In this Article we discuss a micromagnetic modelling approach to describe the ultrafast spin-transfer torque excitation of coherent and incoherent magnons on the nanoscale. Implementing the action of a femtosecond spin current pulse entering an orthogonally magnetized thin ferromagnetic film, we reproduce recent experimental results and reveal the factors responsible for the unequal excitation efficiency of various spin waves. Our findings are in an excellent agreement with the results of an analytical description of spin-wave excitation based on classical kinetic equations. Furthermore, we su…
Magnetic droplets are strongly nonlinear and localized spin-wave solitons that can be formed in current-driven nanocontacts. Here, we propose a simple way to launch droplets in an inhomogeneous nanoscopic waveguide. We use the drift motion of a droplet and show that in a system with broken translational symmetry, the droplet acquires a linear momentum and propagates. We find that the droplet velocity can be tuned via the strength of the break in symmetry and the size of the nanocontact. In addition, we demonstrate that the launched droplet can propagate up to several micrometers in a realistic…
Controlling magnon densities in magnetic materials enables driving spin transport in magnonic devices. We demonstrate the creation of large, out-of-equilibrium magnon densities in a thin-film magnetic insulator via microwave excitation of coherent spin waves and subsequent multi-magnon scattering. We image both the coherent spin waves and the resulting incoherent magnon gas using scanning-probe magnetometry based on electron spins in diamond. We find that the gas extends unidirectionally over hundreds of micrometers from the excitation stripline. Surprisingly, the gas density far exceeds that …
Conversion of thermal energy into magnonic spin currents and/or effective electric polarization promises new device functionalities. A versatile approach is presented here for generating and controlling open circuit magnonic spin currents and an effective multiferroicity at a uniform temperature with the aid of spatially inhomogeneous, external, static electric fields. This field applied to a ferromagnetic insulator with a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya type coupling changes locally the magnon dispersion and modifies the density of thermally excited magnons in a region of the scale of the field inhomog…
The spin chemical potential characterizes the tendency of spins to diffuse. Probing the spin chemical potential could provide insight into materials such as magnetic insulators and spin liquids and aid optimization of spintronic devices. Here, we introduce single-spin magnetometry as a generic platform for non-perturbative, nanoscale characterization of spin chemical potentials. We use this platform to investigate magnons in a magnetic insulator, surprisingly finding that the magnon chemical potential can be efficiently controlled by driving the system's ferromagnetic resonance. We introduce a…
The exceptional magnetic, optical and phononic properties of Yttrium Iron Garnet (YIG) make it unique for spin-wave based and photonic applications. Yet, nanostructuring crystalline YIG and manipulating its magnetism in a non-destructive way is an outstanding challenge, and so far mostly limited to two-dimensional capabilities. Here, we show that irradiation of single-crystal YIG films with a focused UV laser drives a stable, giant enhancement of the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, preserving the crystalline quality. This modulation is highly confined at the nanoscale in both the lateral an…
Apparent Zero-Momentum Signals from Magnon--Magnon Interference in Near-Field Spin-Wave Imaging
Laboratoire Albert Fert, CNRS, Thales, Université Paris-Saclay（阿尔贝·费尔特实验室，法国国家科学研究中心，泰雷兹集团，巴黎萨克雷大学）；Lab-STICC, CNRS UMR 6285, Université de Bretagne Occidentale（STICC实验室，法国国家科学研究中心联合研究单位6285，布列塔尼西部大学）
The magnetic field associated with a picosecond intense electron pulse is shown to switch locally the magnetization of extended films and nanostructures and to ignite locally spin waves excitations. Also, topologically protected magnetic textures such as skyrmions can be imprinted swiftly in a sample with a residual Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya spin-orbital coupling. Characteristics of the created excitations such as the topological charge or the width of the magnon spectrum can be steered via the duration and the strength of the electron pulses. The study points to a possible way for a spatiotempora…
Thermoelectric effects in spintronics are gathering increasing attention as a means of managing heat in nanoscale structures and of controlling spin information by using heat flow. Thermal magnons (spin-wave quanta) are expected to play a major role, however, little is known about the underlying physical mechanisms involved. The reason is the lack of information about magnon interactions and of reliable methods to obtain it, in particular for electrical conductors because of the intricate influence of electrons. Here, we demonstrate a conceptually new device that allows us to gather informatio…
Frequency-Division Multiplexing in Magnonic Waveguides
National Institute of Research and Development in Microtechnologies - IMT Bucharest（布加勒斯特微技术国家研究与开发研究所）；Department of Physics, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University（亚历山德鲁·约安·库扎大学物理系）；Imec；National University of Science and Technology POLITEHNICA Bucharest（布加勒斯特国立科技大学）
