79 research outputs found
Micromagnetic simulations of persistent oscillatory modes excited by spin-polarized current in nanoscale exchange-biased spin valves
We perform 3D micromagnetic simulations of current-driven magnetization
dynamics in nanoscale exchange biased spin-valves that take account of (i) back
action of spin-transfer torque on the pinned layer, (ii) non-linear damping and
(iii) random thermal torques. Our simulations demonstrate that all these
factors significantly impact the current-driven dynamics and lead to a better
agreement between theoretical predictions and experimental results. In
particular, we observe that, at a non-zero temperature and a sub-critical
current, the magnetization dynamics exhibits nonstationary behaviour in which
two independent persistent oscillatory modes are excited which compete for the
angular momentum supplied by spin-polarized current. Our results show that this
multi-mode behaviour can be induced by combined action of thermal and spin
transfer torques.Comment: 7pages, 2 figures, submitted JAP via MMM 200
Spin torque ferromagnetic resonance with magnetic field modulation
We demonstrate a technique of broadband spin torque ferromagnetic resonance
(ST-FMR) with magnetic field modulation for measurements of spin wave
properties in magnetic nanostructures. This technique gives great improvement
in sensitivity over the conventional ST-FMR measurements, and application of
this technique to nanoscale magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) reveals a rich
spectrum of standing spin wave eigenmodes. Comparison of the ST-FMR
measurements with micromagnetic simulations of the spin wave spectrum allows us
to explain the character of low-frequency magnetic excitations in nanoscale
MTJs.Comment: Also see: http://faculty.sites.uci.edu/krivorotovgroup
Mechanisms limiting the coherence time of spontaneous magnetic oscillations driven by DC spin-polarized currents
The spin-transfer torque from a DC spin-polarized current can generate
highly-coherent magnetic precession in nanoscale magnetic-multilayer devices.
By measuring linewidths of spectra from the resulting resistance oscillations,
we argue that the coherence time can be limited at low temperature by thermal
deflections about the equilibrium magnetic trajectory, and at high temperature
by thermally-activated transitions between dynamical modes. Surprisingly, the
coherence time can be longer than predicted by simple macrospin simulations.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure
Micromagnetic understanding of stochastic resonance driven by spin-transfertorque
In this paper, we employ micromagnetic simulations to study non-adiabatic
stochastic resonance (NASR) excited by spin-transfer torque in a
super-paramagnetic free layer nanomagnet of a nanoscale spin valve. We find
that NASR dynamics involves thermally activated transitions among two static
states and a single dynamic state of the nanomagnet and can be well understood
in the framework of Markov chain rate theory. Our simulations show that a
direct voltage generated by the spin valve at the NASR frequency is at least
one order of magnitude greater than the dc voltage generated off the NASR
frequency. Our computations also reproduce the main experimentally observed
features of NASR such as the resonance frequency, the temperature dependence
and the current bias dependence of the resonance amplitude. We propose a simple
design of a microwave signal detector based on NASR driven by spin transfer
torque.Comment: 25 pages 8 figures, accepted for pubblication on Phys. Rev.
Time domain study of frequency-power correlation in spin-torque oscillators
This paper describes a numerical experiment, based on full micromagnetic
simulations of current-driven magnetization dynamics in nanoscale spin valves,
to identify the origins of spectral linewidth broadening in spin torque
oscillators. Our numerical results show two qualitatively different regimes of
magnetization dynamics at zero temperature: regular (single-mode precessional
dynamics) and chaotic. In the regular regime, the dependence of the oscillator
integrated power on frequency is linear, and consequently the dynamics is well
described by the analytical theory of current-driven magnetization dynamics for
moderate amplitudes of oscillations. We observe that for higher oscillator
amplitudes, the functional dependence of the oscillator integrated power as a
function of frequency is not a single-valued function and can be described
numerically via introduction of nonlinear oscillator power. For a range of
currents in the regular regime, the oscillator spectral linewidth is a linear
function of temperature. In the chaotic regime found at large current values,
the linewidth is not described by the analytical theory. In this regime we
observe the oscillator linewidth broadening, which originates from sudden jumps
of frequency of the oscillator arising from random domain wall nucleation and
propagation through the sample. This intermittent behavior is revealed through
a wavelet analysis that gives superior description of the frequency jumps
compared to several other techniques.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures to appear in PR
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