Spin-wave softening across the uniform-to-stripe domain transition in iron garnet film
Spin-wave spectra across transitions between uniform and textured phases can offer deep insight into both symmetry-breaking physics and self-assembled magnonic bands. However, experiments require a material platform that combines low damping, well-defined textures, and spectroscopic access. Here, we study a Bi-doped iron-garnet film with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA), which undergoes a uniform-to-stripe-domain transition as a function of in-plane magnetic field. Real-space imaging by magnetic force microscopy reveals field-reorientable stripe domains aligned with the in-plane field, while reciprocal-space measurements using thermal microfocused Brillouin light scattering ($μ$-BLS) reveal the softening of a low-frequency spin-wave branch near the transition and the appearance of additional modes in the stripe-domain state. Calculated dispersion relations identify finite-$k$ softening in the Damon-Eshbach geometry ($k \perp M$), with the corresponding wavelength matching the stripe periodicity at the transition. In addition, a $μ$-BLS spectral model reproduces the measured mode frequencies and relative intensities at selected fixed fields. Micromagnetic simulations capture the field-driven formation of the stripe state and reproduce the experimental thermal $μ$-BLS spectra. Our findings establish BiYIG with PMA as a model low-damping platform for studying spin-wave freezing, stripe-domain modes, and reconfigurable magnonic band structures.