Spin torque oscillators with nanoscale electrical contacts are able to produce coherent spin waves in extended magnetic films, and offer an attractive combination of electrical and magnetic field ...control, broadband operation, fast spin-wave frequency modulation, and the possibility of synchronizing multiple spin-wave injection sites. However, many potential applications rely on propagating (as opposed to localized) spin waves, and direct evidence for propagation has been lacking. Here, we directly observe a propagating spin wave launched from a spin torque oscillator with a nanoscale electrical contact into an extended Permalloy (nickel iron) film through the spin transfer torque effect. The data, obtained by wave-vector-resolved micro-focused Brillouin light scattering, show that spin waves with tunable frequencies can propagate for several micrometres. Micromagnetic simulations provide the theoretical support to quantitatively reproduce the results.
We use single-cycle THz fields and the femtosecond magneto-optical Kerr effect to, respectively, excite and probe the magnetization dynamics in two thin-film ferromagnets with different lattice ...structures: crystalline Fe and amorphous CoFeB. We observe Landau-Lifshitz-torque magnetization dynamics of comparable magnitude in both systems, but only the amorphous sample shows ultrafast demagnetization caused by the spin-lattice depolarization of the THz-induced ultrafast spin current. Quantitative modeling shows that such spin-lattice scattering events occur on similar time scales than the conventional spin conserving electronic scattering (∼30 fs). This is significantly faster than optical laser-induced demagnetization. THz conductivity measurements point towards the influence of lattice disorder in amorphous CoFeB as the driving force for enhanced spin-lattice scattering.
We investigate the role of domain walls in the ultrafast magnon dynamics of an antiferromagnetic NiO single crystal in a pump-probe experiment with variable pump photon energy. Analyzing the ...amplitude of the energy-dependent photoinduced ultrafast spin dynamics, we detect a yet unreported coupling between the material's characteristic terahertz- and gigahertz-magnon modes. We explain this unexpected coupling between two orthogonal eigenstates of the corresponding Hamiltonian by modeling the magnetoelastic interaction between spins in different domains. We find that such interaction, in the nonlinear regime, couples the two different magnon modes via the domain walls and it can be optically exploited via the exciton-magnon resonance.
Spin Torque—Generated Magnetic Droplet Solitons Mohseni, S. M.; Sani, S. R.; Persson, J. ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
03/2013, Volume:
339, Issue:
6125
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Dissipative solitons have been reported in a wide range of nonlinear systems, but the observation of their magnetic analog has been experimentally challenging. Using spin transfer torque underneath a ...nanocontact on a magnetic thin film with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA), we have observed the generation of dissipative magnetic droplet solitons and report on their rich dynamical properties. Micromagnetic simulations identify a wide range of automodulation frequencies, including droplet oscillatory motion, droplet "spinning," and droplet "breather" states. The droplet can be controlled by using both current and magnetic fields and is expected to have applications in spintronics, magnonics, and PMA-based domain-wall devices.
The drainage area is an important, non-local property of a landscape, which controls surface and subsurface hydrological fluxes. Its role in numerous ecohydrological and geomorphological applications ...has given rise to several numerical methods for its computation. However, its theoretical analysis has lagged behind. Only recently, an analytical definition for the specific catchment area was proposed (Gallant & Hutchinson. 2011 Water Resour. Res. 47, W05535. (doi:10.1029/2009WR008540)), with the derivation of a differential equation whose validity is limited to regular points of the watershed. Here, we show that such a differential equation can be derived from a continuity equation (Chen et al. 2014 Geomorphology 219, 68–86. (doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2014.04.037)) and extend the theory to critical and singular points both by applying Gauss’s theorem and by means of a dynamical systems approach to define basins of attraction of local surface minima. Simple analytical examples as well as applications to more complex topographic surfaces are examined. The theoretical description of topographic features and properties, such as the drainage area, channel lines and watershed divides, can be broadly adopted to develop and test the numerical algorithms currently used in digital terrain analysis for the computation of the drainage area, as well as for the theoretical analysis of landscape evolution and stability.
After their formation, mountainous landscapes gradually evolve toward smoother geometries controlled by the interplay of erosion and sedimentation. The statistical mechanical properties of this ...process and the link between topography and geology have remained largely unexplored. We analyze the slope statistics of different mountains worldwide, showing that landscape age is fingerprinted in their distribution tails. Data reveal a universal relaxation process, through an algebraic decay progressively replaced by an exponential one, with exponents described by a global monotonic function. We then investigate the dominant components of this dynamic smoothing using a landscape evolution model, showing that the time evolution of slope statistics results from a delicate balance between diffusive soil creep, noise, and advective river incision, with the relaxation phase mainly dominated by diffusion. Results may suggest ways to formulate reduced order topographic evolution models for geomorphological and climatological applications, and to explore similarities in surface evolution in different contexts.
Key Points
The age of mountainous landscapes is encoded in the tails of their slope distributions
The behavior of the relaxation process is shown to be common to many mountain ranges worldwide
The relaxation of slope statistics is dominated by diffusive soil creep, compared to noise and advective fluvial incision
It has been argued that if multiple spin wave modes are competing for the same centrally located energy source, as in a nanocontact spin torque oscillator, that only one mode should survive in the ...steady state. Here, the experimental conditions necessary for mode coexistence are explored. Mode coexistence is facilitated by the local field asymmetries induced by the spatially inhomogeneous Oersted field, which leads to a physical separation of the modes, and is further promoted by spin wave localization at reduced applied field angles. Finally, both simulation and experiment reveal a low frequency signal consistent with the intermodulation of two coexistent modes.
We report the direct observation of a localized magnetic soliton in a spin-transfer nanocontact using scanning transmission x-ray microscopy. Experiments are conducted on a lithographically defined ...150 nm diameter nanocontact to an ultrathin ferromagnetic multilayer with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. Element-resolved x-ray magnetic circular dichroism images show an abrupt onset of a magnetic soliton excitation localized beneath the nanocontact at a threshold current. However, the amplitude of the excitation ≃25° at the contact center is far less than that predicted (⪅180°), showing that the spin dynamics is not described by existing models.
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