arXiv subjects

Helmut Schultheiss

Publications and source records attributed to Helmut Schultheiss.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Coherent control of Floquet-engineered magnon frequency combs

Frequency combs represent a hallmark of coherence emerging from nonlinear dynamics, where periodic driving organizes energy into a precisely spaced spectral structure. Extending this concept to collective excitations in solids such as magnons, the quanta of spin waves in magnetically ordered materials, offers a powerful route to control energy flow, coherence, and information processing in condensed matter systems. Here, we demonstrate deterministic control of Floquet-engineered magnon frequency combs in magnetic vortices using nanosecond voltage pulses. By tuning the pulse duration and timing, we control the nonlinear energy transfer between magnons and the vortex core, enabling the Floquet-engineered initiation or suppression of magnon frequency combs far below their spontaneous instability threshold. This pulse-programmable interaction allows the vortex to sustain magnon-driven auto-oscillation with high phase stability, or to revert to its static ground state on demand. Our results establish vortex-based magnetic systems as a robust solid-state platform for Floquet engineering, bridging nonlinear spin dynamics with frequency conversion and coherent spin-based quantum devices.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2025

Predicting the future with magnons

Forecasting complex, chaotic signals is a central challenge across science and technology, with implications ranging from secure communications to climate modeling. Here we demonstrate that magnons - the collective spin excitations in magnetically ordered materials - can serve as an efficient physical reservoir for predicting such dynamics. Using a magnetic microdisk in the vortex state as a magnon-scattering reservoir, we show that intrinsic nonlinear interactions transform a simple microwave input into a high-dimensional spectral output suitable for reservoir computing, in particular, for time series predictions. Trained on the Mackey-Glass benchmark, which generates a cyclic yet aperiodic time series widely used to test machine-learning models, the system achieves accurate and reliable predictions that rival state-of-the-art physical reservoirs. We further identify key design principles: spectral resolution governs the trade-off between dimensionality and accuracy, while combining multiple device geometries systematically improves performance. These results establish magnonics as a promising platform for unconventional computing, offering a path toward scalable and CMOS-compatible hardware for real-time prediction tasks.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2025

Electrical detection of magnons with nanoscale magnetic tunnel junctions

Present information and communication technologies are largely based on electronic devices, which suffer from heat generation and high power consumption. Alternatives like spintronics and magnonics, which harness the spin degree of freedom, offer compelling pathways to overcome these fundamental limitations of charge-based electronics. Magnonics relies on spin waves, the collective excitations of magnetic moments in magnetically ordered materials, to achieve processing and transport of information at microwave frequencies without relying on charge currents. However, efficient means for all-electrical, high-resolution, semiconductor-compatible readout of information encoded in spin waves are still missing. Here, we demonstrate the electrical detection of spin waves using a nanoscale magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) cell fabricated in a state-of-the-art complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) production line. By engineering the dynamic coupling between spin waves and the magnetization state of the MTJ, we demonstrate transduction of spin-wave excitations into measurable electrical signals with high fidelity. Moreover, through these measurements, we find spectral line widths, associated with nonlinear processes, down to a few hundreds of kHz, which opens up new perspectives for spin waves as quantum transducers.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2025

Benchmarking a magnon-scattering reservoir with modal and temporal multiplexing

Physical reservoir computing has emerged as a powerful framework for exploiting the inherent nonlinear dynamics of physical systems to perform computational tasks. Recently, we presented the magnon-scattering reservoir, whose internal nodes are given by the fundamental wave-like excitations of ferromagnets called magnons. These excitations can be geometrically-quantized and, in response to an external stimulus, show transient nonlinear scattering dynamics that can be harnessed to perform memory and nonlinear transformation tasks. Here, we test a magnon-scattering reservoir in a single magnetic disk in the vortex state towards two key performance indicators for physical reservoir computing, the short-term memory and parity-check tasks. Using time-resolved Brillouin light scattering microscopy, we measure the evolution of the reservoir's spectral response to an input sequence consisting of random binary inputs encoded in microwave pulses with two distinct frequencies. Two different output spaces of the reservoir are defined, one based on the time-averaged frequency spectra and another based on temporal multiplexing. Our results demonstrate that the memory and nonlinear transformation capability do not depend on the chosen read-out scheme as long as the dimension of the output space is large enough to capture all nonlinear features provided by the magnon-magnon interactions. This further shows that solely the nonlinear magnons in the physical system, not the read-out, determine the reservoir's capacity.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2025

Control of magnon frequency combs in magnetic rings

Using Brillouin light scattering microscopy, we study the rich dynamics in magnetic disks and rings governed by non-linear interactions, focusing on the role of vortex core dynamics on the spin-wave eigenmode spectrum. By strongly exciting quantized magnon modes in magnetic vortices, self-induced magnon Floquet states are populated by the intrinsic nonlinear coupling of magnon modes to the vortex core gyration. In magnetic rings, however, this generation is suppressed even when exciting the system over a large power range. To retrieve the rich nonlinear dynamics in rings, we apply external in-plane magnetic fields by which the vortex core is restored. Our findings demonstrate how to take active control of the nonlinear processes in magnetic structures of different topology.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2024

Self-induced Floquet magnons in magnetic vortices

Driving condensed matter systems with periodic electromagnetic fields can result in exotic states not found in equilibrium. Termed Floquet engineering, such periodic driving applied to electronic systems can tailor quantum effects to induce topological band structures and control spin interactions. However, Floquet engineering of magnon band structures in magnetic systems has proven challenging so far. Here, we present a class of Floquet states in a magnetic vortex that arise from nonlinear interactions between the vortex core and microwave magnons. Floquet bands emerge through the periodic oscillation of the core, which can be initiated by either driving the core directly or pumping azimuthal magnon modes. For the latter, the azimuthal modes induce core gyration through nonlinear interactions, which in turn renormalizes the magnon band structure. This represents a self-induced mechanism for Floquet band engineering and offers new avenues to study and control nonlinear magnon dynamics.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2023

Nontrivial Aharonov-Bohm effect and alternating dispersion of magnons in cone-state ferromagnetic rings

Soft magnetic dots in the form of thin rings have unique topological properties. They can be in a vortex state with no vortex core. Here, we study the magnon modes of such systems both analytically and numerically. In an external magnetic field, magnetic rings are characterized by easy-cone magnetization and shows a giant splitting of doublets for modes with the opposite value of the azimuthal mode quantum number. The effect of the splitting can be refereed as a magnon analog of the topology-induced Aharonov-Bohm effect. For this we develop an analytical theory to describe the non-monotonic dependence of the mode frequencies on the azimuthal mode number, influenced by the balance between the local exchange and non-local dipole interactions.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2023

Control of 4-magnon-scattering in a magnonic waveguide by pure spin current

We use a pure spin current originating from the spin Hall effect to generate a spin-orbit torque (SOT) strongly reducing the effective damping in an adjacent ferromagnet. Due to additional microwave excitation, large spin-wave amplitudes are achieved exceeding the threshold for 4-magnon scattering, thus resulting in additional spin-wave signals at discrete frequencies. Two or more modes are generated below and above the directly pumped mode with equal frequency spacing. It is shown how this nonlinear process can be controlled in magnonic waveguides by the applied dc current and the microwave pumping power. The sudden onset of the nonlinear effect after exceeding the thresholds can be interpreted as spiking phenomenom which makes the effect potentially interesting for neuromorphic computing applications. Moreover, we investigated this effect under microwave frequency and external field variation. The appearance of the additional modes was investigated in the time-domain revealing a time delay between the directly excited and the simultaneously generated nonlinear modes. Furthermore, spatially resolved measurements show different spatial decay lengths of the directly pumped mode and nonlinear modes.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2023

Modification of three-magnon splitting in a flexed magnetic vortex

We present an experimental and numerical study of three-magnon splitting in a micrometer-sized magnetic disk with the vortex state strongly deformed by static in-plane magnetic fields. Excited with a large enough power at frequency $f_\mathrm{RF}$, the primary radial magnon modes of a cylindrical magnetic vortex can decay into secondary azimuthal modes via spontaneous three-magnon splitting. This nonlinear process exhibits selection rules leading to well-defined and distinct frequencies $f_\mathrm{RF}/2\pm Δf$ of the secondary modes. Here, we demonstrate that three-magnon splitting in vortices can be significantly modified by deforming the magnetic vortex with in-plane magnetic fields, leading to a much richer three-magnon response. We find that, with increasing field, an additional class of secondary modes is excited which are localized to the highly-flexed regions adjacent to the displaced vortex core. While these modes satisfy the same selection rules of three-magnon splitting, they exhibit a much lower three-magnon threshold power compared to regular secondary modes of a centered vortex. The applied static magnetic fields are small ($\simeq$ 10 mT), providing an effective parameter to control the nonlinear spectral response of confined vortices. Our work expands the understanding of nonlinear magnon dynamics in vortices and advertises these for potential neuromorphic applications based on magnons.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Pattern recognition with a magnon-scattering reservoir

Magnons are elementary excitations in magnetic materials and undergo nonlinear multimode scattering processes at large input powers. In experiments and simulations, we show that the interaction between magnon modes of a confined magnetic vortex can be harnessed for pattern recognition. We study the magnetic response to signals comprising sine wave pulses with frequencies corresponding to radial mode excitations. Three-magnon scattering results in the excitation of different azimuthal modes, whose amplitudes depend strongly on the input sequences. We show that recognition rates above 95\% can be attained for four-symbol sequences using the scattered modes, with strong performance maintained with the presence of amplitude noise in the inputs.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Tailoring crosstalk between localized 1D spin-wave nanochannels using focused ion beams

1D spin-wave conduits are envisioned as nanoscale components of magnonics-based logic and computing schemes for future generation electronics. `A-la-carte methods of versatile control of the local magnetization dynamics in such nanochannels are highly desired for efficient steering of the spin waves in magnonic devices. Here, we present a study of localized dynamical modes in 1-$μ$m-wide Permalloy conduits probed by microresonator ferromagnetic resonance technique. We clearly observe the lowest-energy edge mode in the microstrip after its edges were finely trimmed by means of focused Ne$^+$ ion irradiation. Furthermore, after milling the microstrip along its long axis by focused ion beams, creating consecutively $\sim$50 and $\sim$100 nm gaps, additional resonances emerge and are attributed to modes localized at the inner edges of the separated strips. To visualize the mode distribution, spatially resolved Brillouin light scattering microscopy was used showing an excellent agreement with the ferromagnetic resonance data and confirming the mode localization at the outer/inner edges of the strips depending on the magnitude of the applied magnetic field. Micromagnetic simulations confirm that the lowest-energy modes are localized within $\sim$15-nm-wide regions at the edges of the strips and their frequencies can be tuned in a wide range (up to 5 GHz) by changing the magnetostatic coupling (i.e. spatial separation) between the microstrips.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Nonlinear magnon control of atomic spin defects in scalable quantum devices

Ongoing efforts in quantum engineering have recently focused on integrating magnonics into hybrid quantum architectures for novel functionalities. While hybrid magnon-quantum spin systems have been demonstrated with nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond, they have remained elusive on the technologically promising silicon carbide (SiC) platform mainly due to difficulties in finding a resonance overlap between the magnonic system and the spin centers. Here we circumvent this challenge by harnessing nonlinear magnon scattering processes in a magnetic vortex to access magnon modes that overlap in frequency with silicon-vacancy ($\textrm{V}_{\mathrm{Si}}$) spin transitions in SiC. Our results offer a route to develop hybrid systems that benefit from marrying the rich nonlinear dynamics of magnons with the advantageous properties of SiC for scalable quantum technologies.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Symmetry- and curvature effects on spin waves in vortex-state hexagonal nanotubes

Analytic and numerical studies on curved magnetic nano-objects predict numerous exciting effects that can be referred to as magneto-chiral effects, which do not originate from intrinsic Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction or interface-induced anisotropies. In constrast, these chiral effects stem from isotropic exchange or dipole-dipole interaction, present in all magnetic materials, which acquire asymmetric contributions in case of curved geometry of the specimen. As a result, for example, the spin-wave dispersion in round magnetic nanotubes becomes asymmetric, namely spin waves of the same frequency propagating in opposite directions along the nanotube exhibit different wavelenghts. Here, using time-resolved scanning transmission X-ray microscopy experiments, standard micromagntic simulations and a dynamic-matrix approach, we show that the spin-wave spectrum undergoes additional drastic changes when transitioning from a continuous to a discrete rotational symmetry, i.e. from round to hexagonal nanotubes, which are much easier to fabricate. The polygonal shape introduces localization of the modes both to the sharp, highly curved corners and flat edges. Moreover, due to the discrete rotational symmetry, the degenerate nature of the modes with azimuthal wave vectors known from round tubes is partly lifted, resulting in singlet and duplet modes. For comparison with our experiments, we calculate the microwave absorption from the numerically obtained mode profiles which shows that a dedicated antenna design is paramount for magnonic applications in 3D nano-structures. To our knowledge these are the first experiments directly showing real space spin-wave propagation in 3D nano objects.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Non-reciprocity of spin waves in magnetic nanotubes with helical equilibrium magnetization

Spin waves (SWs) in magnetic nanotubes have shown interesting nonreciprocal properties in their dispersion relation, group velocity, frequency linewidth and attenuation lengths. The reported chiral effects are similar to those induced by the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, but originating from the dipole-dipole interaction. Here we show, that the isotropic-exchange interaction can also induce chiral effects in the SW transport; the so-called Berry phase of SWs. We demonstrate that with the application of magnetic fields, the nonreciprocity of the different SW modes can be tuned between the fully dipolar governed and the fully exchange governed cases, as they are directly related to the underlaying equilibrium state. In the helical state, due to the combined action of the two effects every single sign combination of the azimuthal and axial wave vectors leads to different dispersion, allowing for a very sophisticated tuning of the SW transport. A disentanglement of the dipole-dipole and exchange contributions so far was not reported for the SW transport in nanotubes. Furthermore, we propose a device based on coplanar waveguides that would allow to selectively measure the exchange or dipole induced SW nonreciprocities. In the context of magnonic applications, our results might encourage further developments in the emerging field of 3D magnonic devices using curved magnetic membranes.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Theory of three-magnon interaction in a vortex-state magnetic nanodot

We use vector Hamiltonian formalism (VHF) to study theoretically three-magnon parametric interaction (or three-wave splitting) in a magnetic disk existing in a magnetic vortex ground state. The three-wave splitting in a disk is found to obey two selection rules: (i) conservation of the total azimuthal number of the resultant spin-wave modes, and (ii) inequality for the radial numbers of interacting modes, if the mode directly excited by the driving field is radially symmetric (i.e. if the azimuthal number of the directly excited mode is $m = 0$). The selection rule (ii), however, is relaxed in the "small" magnetic disks, due to the influence of the vortex core. We also found, that the efficiency of the three-wave interaction of the directly excited mode strongly depends on the azimuthal and radial mode numbers of the resultant modes, that becomes determinative in the case when several splitting channels (several pairs of resultant modes) simultaneously approximately satisfy the resonance condition for the splitting. The good agreement of the VHF analytic calculations with the experiment and micromagnetic simulations proves the capability of the VHF formalism to predict the actual splitting channels and the magnitudes of the driving field thresholds for the three-wave splitting.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Magnetic texture based magnonics

The spontaneous magnetic orders arising in ferro-, ferri- and antiferromagnets stem from various magnetic interactions. Depending on the interplay and competition among the Heisenberg exchange interaction, Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya exchange interaction, magnetic dipolar interaction and crystal anisotropies, a great variety of magnetic textures may be stabilized, such as magnetic domain walls, vortices, Skyrmions and spiral helical structures. While each of these spin textures responds to external forces in a specific manner with characteristic resonance frequencies, they also interact with magnons, the fundamental collective excitation of the magnetic order, which can propagate in magnetic materials free of charge transport and therefore with low energy dissipation. Recent theories and experiments found that the interplay between spin waves and magnetic textures is particularly interesting and rich in physics. In this review, we introduce and discuss the theoretical framework of magnons living on a magnetic texture background, as well as recent experimental progress in the manipulation of magnons via magnetic textures. The flexibility and reconfigurability of magnetic textures are discussed regarding the potential for applications in information processing schemes based on magnons.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2020

Experimental observation of the curvature-induced asymmetric spin-wave dispersion in hexagonal nanotubes

Theoretical and numerical studies on curved magnetic nano-objects predict numerous exciting effects that can be referred to as magneto-chiral effects, which do not originate from the intrinsic Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction or surface-induced anisotropies. The origin of these chiral effects is the isotropic exchange or the dipole-dipole interaction present in all magnetic materials but renormalized by the curvature. Here, we demonstrate experimentally that curvature induced effects originating from the dipole-dipole interaction are directly observable by measuring spin-wave propagation in magnetic nanotubes with hexagonal cross section using time resolved scanning transmission X-ray microscopy. We show that the dispersion relation is asymmetric upon reversal of the wave vector when the propagation direction is perpendicular to the static magnetization. Therefore counter-propagating spin waves of the same frequency exhibit different wavelenghts. Hexagonal nanotubes have a complex dispersion, resulting from spin-wave modes localised to the flat facets or to the extremely curved regions between the facets. The dispersion relations obtained experimentally and from micromagnetic simulations are in good agreement. %The asymmetric spin-wave transport is present for all modes, promoting hexagonal nanotubes for magnonic applications. These results show that spin-wave transport is possible in 3D, and that the dipole-dipole induced magneto-chiral effects are significant.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Nonlinear losses in magnon transport due to four-magnon scattering

We report on the impact of nonlinear four-magnon scattering on magnon transport in microstructured Co25Fe75 waveguides with low magnetic damping. We determine the magnon propagation length with microfocused Brillouin light scattering over a broad range of excitation powers and detect a decrease of the attenuation length at high powers. This is consistent with the onset of nonlinear four-magnon scattering. Hence, it is critical to stay in the linear regime, when deriving damping parameters from the magnon propagation length. Otherwise, the intrinsic nonlinearity of magnetization dynamics may lead to a misinterpretation of magnon propagation lengths and, thus, to incorrect values of the magnetic damping of the system.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗