High-efficiency control of spin-wave propagation in ultra-thin yttrium iron garnet by the spin-orbit torque

M. Evelt (1) , V. Demidov (1) , V. Bessonov , O. Demokritov (1) , J. Prieto (2) , M. Muñoz (3) , J. Ben Youssef (4) , V. Naletov (5) , G. de Loubens (5) , O. Klein (6) , M. Collet (7) , K. Garcia-Hernandez (8) , P. Bortolotti (9) , V. Cros (8) , A. Anane (8)

1 WWU - Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster = University of Münster
2 Instituto de Sistemas Optoelectrónicos y Microtecnología
3 Instituto Carlos I de Fisica Teorica y Computacional
4 LMB - Laboratoire de magnétisme de Bretagne
5 LNO - Laboratoire Nano-Magnétisme et Oxydes
6 SPEC - UMR3680 - Service de physique de l'état condensé
7 LPTMC - Laboratoire de Physique Théorique de la Matière Condensée
8 UMPhy CNRS/THALES - Unité mixte de physique CNRS/Thales
9 Recherche translationelle relations hôte-pathogènes

We study experimentally with submicrometer spatial resolution the propagation of spin waves in microscopic waveguides based on the nanometer-thick yttrium iron garnet and Pt layers. We demonstrate that by using the spin-orbit torque, the propagation length of the spin waves in such systems can be increased by nearly a factor of 10, which corresponds to the increase in the spin-wave intensity at the output of a 10 μm long transmission line by three orders of magnitude. We also show that, in the regime, where the magnetic damping is completely compensated by the spin-orbit torque, the spin-wave amplification is suppressed by the nonlinear scattering of the coherent spin waves from current-induced excitations.

Domains: Physics [physics]

M. Evelt, V. Demidov, V. Bessonov, O. Demokritov, J. Prieto, et al.. High-efficiency control of spin-wave propagation in ultra-thin yttrium iron garnet by the spin-orbit torque. Applied Physics Letters, 2016, 108 (17), ⟨10.1063/1.4948252⟩. ⟨cea-01484755⟩