Shape- and Interface-Induced Control of Spin Dynamics of Two-Dimensional Bicomponent Magnonic Crystals.

Controlled fabrication of periodically arranged embedded nanostructures with strong interelement interaction through the interface between the two different materials has great potential applications in spintronics, spin logic, and other spin-based communication devices. Here, we report the fabrication of two-dimensional bicomponent magnonic crystals in form of embedded Ni80Fe20 nanostructures in Co50Fe50 thin films by nanolithography. The spin wave (SW) spectra studied by a broadband ferromagnetic resonance spectroscopy showed a significant variation as the shape of the embedded nanostructure changes from circular to square. Significantly, in both shapes, a minimum in frequency is obtained at a negative value of bias field during the field hysteresis confirming the presence of a strong exchange coupling at the interface between the two materials, which can potentially increase the spin wave propagation velocity in such structures leading to faster gigahertz frequency magnetic communication and logic devices. The spin wave frequencies and bandgaps show bias field tunability, which is important for above device applications. Numerical simulations qualitatively reproduced the experimental results, and simulated mode profiles revealed the spatial distribution of the SW modes and internal magnetic fields responsible for this observation. Development of such controlled arrays of embedded nanostructures with improved interface can be easily applied to other forms of artificial crystals.

Optically induced tunable magnetization dynamics in nanoscale co antidot lattices.

We report the time-domain measurements of optically induced precessional dynamics in a series of Co antidot lattices with fixed antidot diameter of 100 nm and with varying lattice constants (S) between 200 and 500 nm. For the sparsest lattice, we observe two bands of precessional modes with a band gap, which increases substantially with the decrease in S down to 300 nm. At S = 200 nm, four distinct bands with significant band gaps appear. The numerically calculated mode profiles show various localized and extended modes with the propagation direction perpendicular to the bias magnetic field. We numerically demonstrate some composite antidot structures with very rich magnonic spectra spreading between 3 and 27 GHz based upon the above experimental observation.