Spin Waves in Magnetic Films

Waves are ubiquitous in nature, and in fundamental physics at all length scales and all subfields of physics. In magnetic materials, waves known as spin waves or magnons can propagate. These waves can be leveraged to transmit and process information, not only because spin waves can be used to transmit energy without the need to move electrons or atoms over long distances, but also because there are many ways to manipulate spin waves – through local magnetic fields, spin orbit torques, anisotropies, spin textures, exchange bias, heat, and more. Consequently, truly new paradigms for information transmission and processing are possible. In this talk I will discuss some of our recent work on spin waves that includes studies of magnonic crystals that are used to create forbidden frequency ranges or band gaps, observations of the behavior of narrow, sub-wavelength beams of spin waves known as caustics, and new strategies for forming spin wave beams.