Spin waves represent fluctuations in the magnetic state. In recent years, much effort has been focused on understanding how spin waves can be used for information processing, a field termed “magnonics”.
Over the past few years, the NOMADE group has led a number of studies on how spin waves propagate in nontrivial spin textures, such as magnetic domain walls. An interesting feature is that certain spin wave modes remain confined to domain walls, which can then act as curved conduits for spin wave propagation over micron scales. Because the channelled modes exist in the frequency gap of the usual bulk spin wave spectrum, there is little to no interference with the bulk modes. Through the recently funded ANR project “SWANGATE”, the NOMADE group will take an active part in developing new magnonic devices that exploit such channelled spin waves.
In systems with a strong chiral interactions of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya form, we have also shown that new confinement effects can arise at boundary edges and unidirectional focusing of spin wave beams can be made possible. These results highlight the interesting prospects for new functionalities for magnonics with ultrathin ferromagnetic films.
Further reading:
- F. Garcia-Sanchez, P. Borys, A. Vansteenkiste, J.-V. Kim, and R. L. Stamps, Phys. Rev. B 89, 224408 (2014).
- F. Garcia-Sanchez, P. Borys, R. Soucaille, J.-P. Adam, R. L. Stamps, and J.-V. Kim, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 247206 (2015).
- P. Borys, F. Garcia-Sanchez, J.-V. Kim, and R. L. Stamps, Adv. Electron. Mater. 2, 1500202 (2016).
- J.-V. Kim, R. L. Stamps, and R. E. Camley, Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 197204 (2016).