Towards an experimental proof of the magnonic Aharonov−-Casher effect

Controlling the phase and amplitude of spin waves in magnetic insulators with an electric field opens the way to fast logic circuits with ultra-low power consumption. One way to achieve such control is to manipulate the magnetization of the medium via magnetoelectric effects. In experiments with magnetostatic spin waves in an yttrium iron garnet film, we have obtained the first evidence of a theoretically predicted phenomenon: The change of the spin-wave phase due to the magnonic Aharonov$-$Casher effect$-$the geometric accumulation of the magnon phase as these quasiparticles propagate through an electric field region

Temperature dependent relaxation of dipole-exchange magnons in yttrium iron garnet films

Low energy consumption enabled by charge-free information transport, which is free from ohmic heating, and the ability to process phase-encoded data by nanometer-sized interference devices at GHz and THz frequencies are just a few benefits of spin-wave-based technologies. Moreover, when approaching cryogenic temperatures, quantum phenomena in spin-wave systems pave the path towards quantum information processing. In view of these applications, the lifetime of magnons$-$spin-wave quanta$-$is of high relevance for the fields of magnonics, magnon spintronics and quantum computing. Here, the relaxation behavior of parametrically excited magnons having wavenumbers from zero up to $6\cdot 10^5 \mathrm{rad~cm}^{-1}$ was experimentally investigated in the temperature range from 20 K to 340 K in single crystal yttrium iron garnet (YIG) films epitaxially grown on gallium gadolinium garnet (GGG) substrates as well as in a bulk YIG crystal$-$the magnonic materials featuring the lowest magnetic damping known so far. As opposed to the bulk YIG crystal in YIG films we have found a significant increase in the magnon relaxation rate below 150 K$-$up to 10.5 times the reference value at 340 K$-$in the entire range of probed wavenumbers. This increase is associated with rare-earth impurities contaminating the YIG samples with a slight contribution caused by coupling of spin waves to the spin system of the paramagnetic GGG substrate at the lowest temperatures

Evolution of room-temperature magnon gas toward coherent Bose-Einstein condensate

The appearance of spontaneous coherence is a fundamental feature of a Bose-Einstein condensate and an essential requirement for possible applications of the condensates for data processing and quantum computing. In the case of a magnon condensate in a magnetic crystal, such computing can be performed even at room temperature. So far, the process of coherence formation in a magnon condensate was inaccessible. We study the evolution of magnon radiation spectra by direct detection of microwave radiation emitted by magnons in a parametrically driven yttrium iron garnet crystal. By using specially shaped bulk samples, we show that the parametrically overpopulated magnon gas evolves to a state, whose coherence is only limited by the natural magnon relaxation into the crystal lattice.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure