Spin-wave propagation in cubic anisotropy materials

NPG Asia Mater. 2017:9:e392. doi: 10.1038/am.2017.87. Epub 2017 Jun 30.

Abstract

The information carrier of modern technologies is the electron charge whose transport inevitably generates Joule heating. Spin-waves, the collective precessional motion of electron spins, do not involve moving charges and thus avoid Joule heating [1-3]. In this respect, magnonic devices in which the information is carried by spin-waves attract interest for low-power computing. However implementation of magnonic devices for practical use suffers from low spin-wave signal and on/off ratio. Here we demonstrate that cubic anisotropy materials can enhance spin-wave signals by improving spin-wave amplitude as well as group velocity and attenuation length. Furthermore, cubic anisotropy material shows an enhanced on/off ratio through a laterally localized edge mode, which closely mimics the gate-controlled conducting channel in traditional field-effect transistors. These attractive features of cubic anisotropy materials will invigorate magnonics research towards wave-based functional devices.