Phenomenological description of the nonlocal magnetization relaxation in magnonics, spintronics, and domain-wall dynamics

A phenomenological equation called Landau-Lifshitz-Baryakhtar (LLBar) equation, which could be viewed as the combination of Landau-Lifshitz (LL) equation and an extra "exchange damping" term, was derived by Baryakhtar using Onsager's relations. We interpret the origin of this "exchange damping" as nonlocal damping by linking it to the spin current pumping. The LLBar equation is investigated numerically and analytically for the spin wave decay and domain wall motion. Our results show that the lifetime and propagation length of short-wavelength magnons in the presence of nonlocal damping could be much smaller than those given by LL equation. Furthermore, we find that both the domain wall mobility and the Walker breakdown field are strongly influenced by the nonlocal damping.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

magnum.fe: A micromagnetic finite-element simulation code based on FEniCS

We have developed a finite-element micromagnetic simulation code based on the FEniCS package called magnum.fe. Here we describe the numerical methods that are applied as well as their implementation with FEniCS. We apply a transformation method for the solution of the demagnetization-field problem. A semi-implicit weak formulation is used for the integration of the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation. Numerical experiments show the validity of simulation results. magnum.fe is open source and well documented. The broad feature range of the FEniCS package makes magnum.fe a good choice for the implementation of novel micromagnetic finite-element algorithms

Patterns formation in axially symmetric Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert-Slonczewski equations

The Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert-Slonczewski equation describes magnetization dynamics in the presence of an applied field and a spin polarized current. In the case of axial symmetry and with focus on one space dimension, we investigate the emergence of space-time patterns in the form of wavetrains and coherent structures, whose local wavenumber varies in space. A major part of this study concerns existence and stability of wavetrains and of front- and domain wall-type coherent structures whose profiles asymptote to wavetrains or the constant up-/down-magnetizations. For certain polarization the Slonczewski term can be removed which allows for a more complete charaterization, including soliton-type solutions. Decisive for the solution structure is the polarization parameter as well as size of anisotropy compared with the difference of field intensity and current intensity normalized by the damping

Computer simulation of a thin magnetic film with vertical anisotropy

We describe a discrete micromagnetic model for a thin magnetic layer which has been developed to perform computer simulations of the system. The magnetisation in this model is given in terms of a cubic array of interacting microscopic spins. The dynamics of the spins is given by a time discretisation of the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equations of motion. The array is continued periodically in the x- and y-direction in order to reduce boundary effects, and is finite in the z-direction. The mutual interactions that are incorporated are exchange and dipole interaction, and the crystal lattice interaction is modeled by a roughly vertical uniaxial anisotropy term. The strengths of the different interactions are scaled so as to conform to values for CoCr, fitted to experimental results within the context of continuum models. For this setup we have determined full hysteresis curves and compared with experimental results of these films

Field-driven femtosecond magnetization dynamics induced by ultrastrong coupling to THz transients

Controlling ultrafast magnetization dynamics by a femtosecond laser is attracting interest both in fundamental science and industry because of the potential to achieve magnetic domain switching at ever advanced speed. Here we report experiments illustrating the ultrastrong and fully coherent light-matter coupling of a high-field single-cycle THz transient to the magnetization vector in a ferromagnetic thin film. We could visualize magnetization dynamics which occur on a timescale of the THz laser cycle and two orders of magnitude faster than the natural precession response of electrons to an external magnetic field, given by the Larmor frequency. We show that for one particular scattering geometry the strong coherent optical coupling can be described within the framework of a renormalized Landau Lifshitz equation. In addition to fundamentally new insights to ultrafast magnetization dynamics the coherent interaction allows for retrieving the complex time-frequency magnetic properties and points out new opportunities in data storage technology towards significantly higher storage speed.Comment: 25 page

Micromagnetic Simulations of High-Speed Magnonic Devices

An emerging field of research in recent years has been magnonics, the manipulation of coherent spin excitations, spin-waves, in magnetically ordered materials. Recent advances in experimental techniques for high-frequency magnetisation dynamics and the advent of micromagnetic simulations has led to the propositions of functional magnetic devices based upon the control of spin-waves. This thesis presents work for characterisation and future development of high-speed magnonic devices derived from micromagnetic simulations, and numerical techniques for the solution of the Landau-Lifshitz equation for micromagnetic simulations in the finite-difference time-domain approach. In chapter 3, spin-waves were controlled in the propagation along a thin film magnonic waveguide via resonant scattering from a mesoscale chiral magnetic resonator, in the backwards volume, forwards volume and Damon-Eshbach geometries. The scattering interaction demonstrated non-reciprocity associated with devices acting as spin-wave diodes. Additionally, such devices demonstrated the possibility of phase-shifting. The results obtained were numerically fit and interpreted in terms of a phenomenological model of resonant chiral scattering. The origin of the chiral coupling was discussed in terms of the stray field. In chapter 4, the phenomenon of spin-wave confinement, wavelength conversion and Möbius mode formation was demonstrated in the backwards volume configuration of thin-film magnetic waveguides. The presence of magnetic field gradients or thickness gradients modified the position of the Γ-point of the dispersion relation for Backwards Volume Dipolar-Exchange Spin-Waves (BVDESW), such that back-scattering and wavelength conversion occurred from the field/thickness gradients due to the “valleys” of the spin-wave dispersion. This work highlights a basis for not only experimental observation of such phenomena, but the potential for devices based upon valleytronics, an exploitation of the valley degree-of-freedom due to the spin-wave dispersion. In chapter 5, motivated by numerical error encountered in previous work in the thesis, the validity of implicit methods formulated for the numerical solution of the Landau-Lifshitz equation for finite-difference time-domain micromagnetic simulations were demonstrated. The implicit methods were tested for single spin precession in an external field, the μMAG standard problems and additional test cases. A source of numerical instability in explicit integration methods, numerical stiffness in systems of differential equations, was demonstrated to occur in existing explicit numerical methods, applied to the Landau-Lifshitz equation, common to popular micromagnetic software. The stability of implicit methods was demonstrated to be advantageous over explicit methods in micromagnetic scenarios where numerical stiffness could occur. Additionally, it was demonstrated that the quality of the numerical results was improved compared to explicit methods when the implicit method possessed L-stability, a damping of stiff, high wave number spin waves in the simulation.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC