Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Article
  • Published:

Emission and propagation of 1D and 2D spin waves with nanoscale wavelengths in anisotropic spin textures

Nature Nanotechnology volume 14, pages 328–333 (2019)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Spin waves offer intriguing perspectives for computing and signal processing, because their damping can be lower than the ohmic losses in conventional complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) circuits. Magnetic domain walls show considerable potential as magnonic waveguides for on-chip control of the spatial extent and propagation of spin waves. However, low-loss guidance of spin waves with nanoscale wavelengths and around angled tracks remains to be shown. Here, we demonstrate spin wave control using natural anisotropic features of magnetic order in an interlayer exchange-coupled ferromagnetic bilayer. We employ scanning transmission X-ray microscopy to image the generation of spin waves and their propagation across distances exceeding multiples of the wavelength. Spin waves propagate in extended planar geometries as well as along straight or curved one-dimensional domain walls. We observe wavelengths between 1 μm and 150 nm, with excitation frequencies ranging from 250 MHz to 3 GHz. Our results show routes towards the practical implementation of magnonic waveguides in the form of domain walls in future spin wave logic and computational circuits.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Spin waves in different geometries.
Fig. 2: Sample layout and magnetic configuration.
Fig. 3: Excitation of spin waves.
Fig. 4: Spin waves in the domain wall.
Fig. 5: Spin wave dispersion relations.
Fig. 6: Domain walls as waveguides.

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

References

  1. Bloch, F. Zur theorie des ferromagnetismus. Z. Phys. 61, 206–209 (1930).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Kruglyak, V. V., Demokritov, S. O. & Grundler, D. Magnonics. J. Phys. D 43, 264001 (2010).

  3. Chumak, A. V., Serga, A. A. & Hillebrands, B. Magnon transistor for all-magnon data processing. Nat. Commun. 5, 4700 (2014).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Chumak, A. V., Vasyuchka, V. I., Serga, A. A. & Hillebrands, B. Magnon spintronics. Nat. Phys. 11, 453–461 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Lan, J., Yu, W., Wu, R. & Xiao, J. Spin-wave diode. Phys. Rev. X 5, 041049 (2015).

    Google Scholar 

  6. Gurevich, A. G. & Melkov, G. A. Magnetization Oscillations and Waves (CRC, New York, 1996).

    Google Scholar 

  7. Oliner, A. A. Acoustic Surface Waves (Springer, Berlin, 1978).

  8. Morgan, D. R. Surface acoustic wave devices and applications: 1. Introductory review. Ultrasonics 11, 121–131 (1973).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Lee, K.-S., Choi, S. & Kim, S.-K. Radiation of spin waves from magnetic vortex cores by their dynamic motion and annihilation processes. Appl. Phys. Lett. 87, 192502 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Demokritov, S. O. et al. Bose–Einstein condensation of quasi-equilibirum magnons at room temperature under pumping. Nature 443, 430–433 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Davies, C. S., Poimanov, V. D. & Kruglyak, V. V. Mapping the magnonic landscape in patterned magnetic structures. Phys. Rev. 96, 094439 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Mozooni, B. & McCord, J. Direct observation of closure domain wall mediated spin waves. Appl. Phys. Lett. 107, 042402 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Wiele, B. V., Hämäläinen, S. J., Baláz, P., Montoncello, F. & Dijken, S. V. Tunable short-wavelength spin wave excitation from pinned magnetic domain walls. Sci. Rep. 6, 21330 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Whitehead, N. J., Horsley, S. A. R., Philbin, T. G., Kuchko, A. N. & Kruglyak, V. V. Theory of linear spin wave emission from a Bloch domain wall. Phys. Rev. B 96, 064415 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Hermsdoerfer, S. J. et al. A spin-wave frequency doubler by domain wall oscillation. Appl. Phys. Lett. 94, 223510 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Holländer, R. B., Müller, C., Schmalz, J., Gerken, M. & McCord, J. Magnetic domain walls as broadband spin wave and elastic magnetisation wave emitters. Sci. Rep. 8, 13871 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Sluka, V et al.in Stacked topological spin textures as emitters for multidimensional spin wave modes. IEEE International Magnetics Conference (INTERMAG) https://doi.org/10.1109/INTMAG.2015.7157029 (IEEE, 2015).

  18. Garcia-Sanchez, F. et al. Narrow magnonic waveguides based on domain walls. Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 247206 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Wagner, K. et al. Magnetic domain walls as reconfigurable spin-wave nanochannels. Nat. Nanotechnol. 11, 432–436 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Albisetti, E. et al. Nanoscale spin-wave circuits based on engineered reconfigurable spin-textures. Commun. Phys. 1, 56 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Aliev, F. G. et al. Localized domain-wall excitations in patterned magnetic dots probed by broadband ferromagnetic resonance. Phys. Rev. B 84, 144406 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Vogt, K. et al. Realization of a spin-wave multiplexer. Nat. Commun. 5, 3727 (2014).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  23. Gruszecki, P., Kasprzak, M., Serebryannikov, A. E., Krawczyk, M. & Smigaj, W. Microwave excitation of spin wave beams in thin ferromagnetic films. Sci. Rep. 6, 22367 (2016).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Albisetti, E. et al. Nanopatterning reconfigurable magnetic landscapes via thermally assisted scanning probe lithography. Nat. Nanotechnol. 11, 545–551 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Haldar, A., Kumar, D. & Adeyeye, A. O. A reconfigurable waveguide for energy-efficient transmission and local manipulation of information in a nanomagnetic device. Nat. Nanotechnol. 11, 437–443 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Demidov, V. E., Urazhdin, S. & Demokritov, S. O. Direct observation and mapping of spin waves emitted by spin–torque nano-oscillators. Nat. Mater. 9, 984–988 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Madami, M. et al. Direct observation of a propagating spin wave induced by spin-transfer torque. Nat. Nanotechnol. 6, 635–638 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Urazhdin, S. et al. Nanomagnetic devices based on the spin–transfer torque. Nat. Nanotechnol. 9, 509–513 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Bonetti, S. et al. Direct observation and imaging of a spin-wave soliton with p-like symmetry. Nat. Commun. 6, 8889 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  30. Yu, H. et al. Omnidirectional spin-wave nanograting coupler. Nat. Commun. 4, 2702 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Yu, H. et al. Approaching soft X-ray wavelengths in nanomagnet-based microwave technology. Nat. Commun. 7, 11255 (2016).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  32. Hämäläinen, S. J., Brandl, F., Franke, K. J. A., Grundler, D. & van Dijken, S. Tunable short-wavelength spin-wave emission and confinement in anisotropy-modulated multiferroic heterostructures. Phys. Rev. Appl. 8, 014020 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Voto, M., Lopez-Diaz, L. & Martinez, E. Pinned domain wall oscillator as tunable direct current spin wave emitter. Sci. Rep. 7, 13559 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Wintz, S. et al. Magnetic vortex cores as tunable spin wave emitters. Nat. Nanotechnol. 11, 948–953 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Dieterle, G. et al. Coherent excitation of heterosymmetric spin waves with ultrashort wavelengths. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.00681 (2017).

  36. Shinjo, T., Okuno, T., Hassdorf, R., Shigeto, K. & Ono, T. Magnetic vortex core observation in circular dots of permalloy. Science 289, 930–932 (2000).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Thiele, A. A. Steady-state of motion of magnetic domains. Phys. Rev. Lett. 30, 230 (1973).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Choe, S.-B. et al. Vortex core-driven magnetization dynamics. Science 304, 420–422 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Xing, X. & Zhou, Y. Fiber optics for spin waves. NPG Asia Mater. 8, e246 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Winter, J. M. Bloch wall excitation. Application to nuclear resonance in a Bloch wall. Phys. Rev. 124, 452 (1961).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Stoll, H. et al. High-resolution imaging of fast magnetization dynamics in magnetic nanostructures. Appl. Phys. Lett. 84, 3328 (2004).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  42. Grünberg, P., Schreiber, R., Pang, Y., Brodsky, M. B. & Sowers, H. Layered magnetic structures: evidence for antiferromagnetic coupling of Fe layers across Cr interlayers. Phys. Rev. Lett. 57, 2442 (1986).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Labrune, M. & Miltat, J. Wall structures in ferro/antiferromagnetic exchange-coupled bilayers: a numerical micromagnetic approach. J. Magn. Magn. Mater. 151, 231–245 (1995).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Groß, F. et al. Nanoscale detection of spin wave deflection angles in permalloy. Appl. Phys. Lett. 114, 012406 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Stamps, R. L., Carriço, A. S. & Wigen, P. E. Domain-wall resonance in exchange-coupled magnetic films. Phys. Rev. B 55, 6473–6484 (1997).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Wang, D., Nordman, C., Qian, Z., Daughton, J. M. & Myers, J. Magnetostriction effect of amorphous CoFeB thin films and application in spin-dependent tunnel junctions. J. Appl. Phys. 97, 10C906 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Grünberg, P. Magnetostatic spinwave modes of a heterogeneous ferromagnetic double layer. J. Appl. Phys. 52, 6824–6829 (1981).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Damon, R. W. & Eshbach, J. R. Magnetostatic modes of a ferromagnetic slab. J. Phys. Chem. Solids. 19, 308–320 (1961).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Cho, J. et al. Thickness dependence of the interfacial Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction in inversion symmetry broken systems. Nat. Commun. 6, 7635 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. Goldstone, J., Salam, A. & Weinberg, S. Broken symmetries. Phys. Rev. 127, 965–970 (1962).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  51. Wintz, S. et al. Control of vortex pair states by post-deposition interlayer exchange coupling modification. Phys. Rev. B 85, 134417 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. Raabe, J. et al. PolLux: a new facility for soft X-ray spectromicroscopy at the Swiss Light Source. Rev. Sci. Instrum. 79, 113704 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  53. Schütz, G. et al. Absorption of circularly polarized X rays in iron. Phys. Rev. Lett. 58, 737–740 (1987).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  54. Landau, L. & Lifshits, E. On the theory of the dispersion of magnetic permeability in ferromgnetic bodies. Phys. Z. Sow. 8, 135 (1935).

    Google Scholar 

  55. Gilbert, T. L. A Lagrangian formulation of the gyromagnetic equation of the magnetization field. Phys. Rev. 100, 1243 (1955).

    Google Scholar 

  56. Vansteenkiste, A. et al. The design and verification of MuMax3. AIP Adv. 4, 107133 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  57. Wei, J. et al. Annealing influence on the exchange stiffness constant of permalloy films with stripe domains. J. Phys. D 49, 265002 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  58. Conca, A. et al. Annealing influence on the Gilbert damping parameter and the exchange constant of CoFeB films. Appl. Phys. Lett. 104, 182407 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors thank B. Sarafimov, B. Watts and M. Bechtel for experimental support at the STXM beamlines, as well as C. Fowley, K. Kirsch, B. Scheumann and C. Neisser for their help with sample fabrication. Most of the experiments were performed at the Maxymus endstation at BESSY2, HZB, Berlin, Germany. The authors thank HZB for the allocation of synchrotron radiation beamtime. Some experiments were performed at the PolLux endstation at SLS, PSI, Villigen, Switzerland. Pollux is financed by BMBF via contracts 05KS4WE1/6 and 05KS7WE1. Support by the Nanofabrication Facilities Rossendorf at IBC, HZDR, Dresden, Germany is gratefully acknowledged. V.S. and A.D. acknowledge funding from the Helmholtz Young Investigator Initiative under grant VH-N6-1048. R.A.G. acknowledges financial support from FONDECYT Iniciacion 11170736 and 1161403. A.R.M. acknowledges funding from FONDECYT 3170647; funding from the Basal Program for Centers of Excellence, grant FB0807 CEDENNA, CONICYT is also acknowledged. V.T. and A.S. acknowledge support from the US National Science Foundation under grants EFMA-1641989 and ECCS-1708982 and from the DARPA M3IC grant under contract no. W911-17-C-0031. S.W. acknowledges funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 290605 (PSI-FELLOW/COFUND).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Tobias Warnatz

    Present address: Uppsala Universitet, Uppsala, Sweden

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Dresden, Germany

    Volker Sluka, Tobias Schneider, Attila Kákay, Tobias Warnatz, Artur Erbe, Alina Deac, Jürgen Lindner, Jürgen Fassbender & Sebastian Wintz

  2. Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Valparaíso, Chile

    Rodolfo A. Gallardo & Pedro Landeros

  3. Center for the Development of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (CEDENNA), Santiago, Chile

    Rodolfo A. Gallardo & Pedro Landeros

  4. Max-Planck-Institut für Intelligente Systeme, Stuttgart, Germany

    Markus Weigand & Gisela Schütz

  5. Leibniz Institut für Photonische Technologien, Jena, Germany

    Roland Mattheis

  6. Universidad de Aysén, Coyhaique, Chile

    Alejandro Roldán-Molina

  7. Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Vasil Tiberkevich & Andrei Slavin

  8. Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen, PSI, Switzerland

    Jörg Raabe & Sebastian Wintz

  9. Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany

    Jürgen Fassbender

Authors
  1. Volker Sluka
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Tobias Schneider
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Rodolfo A. Gallardo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Attila Kákay
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Markus Weigand
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Tobias Warnatz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Roland Mattheis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Alejandro Roldán-Molina
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Pedro Landeros
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  10. Vasil Tiberkevich
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  11. Andrei Slavin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  12. Gisela Schütz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  13. Artur Erbe
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  14. Alina Deac
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  15. Jürgen Lindner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  16. Jörg Raabe
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  17. Jürgen Fassbender
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  18. Sebastian Wintz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

S.W. conceived the experiment. V.S., M.W. and S.W. performed the STXM measurements. V.S. and S.W. analysed the data. T.S., T.W., A.K. and S.W. conducted the micromagnetic simulations. R.A.G., A.R.M. and P.L. calculated the spin wave dispersion relation. R.M. and S.W. supervised sample preparation. V.S. and S.W. wrote the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Volker Sluka or Sebastian Wintz.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Journal peer review information Nature Nanotechnology thanks Ferran Macià, Takuya Satoh and other anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Publisher’s note: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figures 1–3

Supplementary Movie 1

Plane and circular waves excited at 1.11 GHz, with left and right panels showing absolute and normalized contrast, respectively.

Supplementary Movie 2

Plane and circular waves excited at 1.46 GHz, with left and right panels showing absolute and normalized contrast, respectively.

Supplementary Movie 3

Plane and circular wave interference at the centre region for the different layers NiFe (top), CoFeB (middle) and the cumulative signal of Fe (bottom), with left and right panels showing absolute and normalized contrast, respectively.

Supplementary Movie 4

Spin-waves in domain walls with absolute (left) and normalized (right) contrast at 500 MHz (top) and 250 MHz (bottom).

Supplementary Movie 5

Spin-waves in domain walls excited by a pulse, with absolute (left) and normalized (right) contrast.

Supplementary Movie 6

Spin wave packet traveling along a curved domain wall (normalized contrast).

Supplementary Movie 7

Micromagnetic simulation of spin waves in a domain wall (normalized contrast).

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Sluka, V., Schneider, T., Gallardo, R.A. et al. Emission and propagation of 1D and 2D spin waves with nanoscale wavelengths in anisotropic spin textures. Nat. Nanotechnol. 14, 328–333 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-019-0383-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-019-0383-4

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing