arXiv subjects

Ondřej Wojewoda

Publications and source records attributed to Ondřej Wojewoda.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Probing the wave-vector gap in nanoscale magnonics

Short-wavelength spin waves are central to miniaturizing magnonic devices and to studying exchange-dominated magnetization dynamics. Yet the wave-vector range between roughly 30 and 300 radians per micrometre has remained difficult to access experimentally, posing challenges for both excitation and detection. This Perspective reviews recent advances in emerging measurement techniques and discusses prospects for their future development. Optical and microwave techniques are restricted to the vicinity of the Brillouin-zone centre. Inelastic neutron, electron and resonant hard x-ray scattering cover the full Brillouin zone but lack the energy resolution needed for low-frequency magnons at intermediate wave vectors. This Perspective examines five emerging approaches that are beginning to close this gap: Mie-enhanced Brillouin light scattering, colour-centre magnetometry, magnon momentum microscopy, extreme-ultraviolet transient-grating spectroscopy, and time-resolved scanning transmission x-ray microscopy. For each, we discuss the physical principle, demonstrated capabilities, current limitations and prospects for development. Compared side by side, the techniques give complementary access to magnon frequencies, local stray fields, real-space dynamics and momentum-space distributions, and they differ in their sensitivity to coherent and incoherent excitations. We therefore discuss the main advantages and use cases of each technique and consider the practical requirements for addressing different scientific questions. We highlight opportunities for further development, including higher sensitivity, improved spatial and temporal resolution, and broader frequency and wave-vector coverage. Together, these advances could enable, for example, systematic studies of nonlinear magnon interactions at nanoscale wavelengths and investigations of emerging magnetic materials such as altermagnets.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2026

Two-magnon scattering in the framework of the Lippmann-Schwinger equation

Controlling magnetic losses requires identifying the microscopic origin of extrinsic linewidth broadening. We introduce a Lippmann--Schwinger framework for two-magnon scattering from weak defect potentials, showing that scattering is set by the overlap between the perturbation of the effective field and degenerate spin-wave states. Applied to iron garnet films, YIG/GGG(111) and YIG/GGG(110), we identify crystallographic directions along which these perturbation are elongated. This approach provides a link between the crystallography, effective field on the sample scale and two-magnon scattering.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2026

Ultrafast formation of a large dynamic magnetic soliton

Nonlinear magnetization dynamics offers a rich variety of phenomena ranging from bistability to chaos. Here, we report the ultrafast formation of a dynamic magnetic soliton in thin ferrimagnetic garnet films with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, driven by the microwave magnetic field of a microstrip antenna. Using time-resolved Brillouin light scattering microscopy and scanning transmission X-ray microscopy, we directly track the build-up of the large-angle precession state. The observed soliton is distinct from other nonlinear magnetic excitations in two key aspects: (i) it forms inside the linear spin-wave frequency band, and (ii) it is exceptionally large, reaching tens of microns beyond the antenna. We explain the soliton formation by the self-limiting mechanism upon a positive nonlinear frequency shift and the spatial extent of the near-field of the antenna. At large distances from the drive, the soliton collapses and emits short-wavelength spin waves via almost instantaneous spatial wavenumber conversion. Time-resolved measurements further reveal a small finite delay during soliton formation, while coherent long-range oscillations appear essentially simultaneously over distances up to 40 micrometers. These results establish microwave-driven solitons as a robust nonlinear phenomenon in thin-film garnets and suggest opportunities for fast, nonlocal manipulation of magnetic states and for applications in novel computational schemes.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2026

Sculpting Spin-Wave Landscapes via Curvature of 2D Magnonic Crystals

Engineering the dispersion relation is one of the key ingredients enabling the application of spin waves in computational elements. One way to engineer the spin-wave band structure is to create an artificial magnonic crystal, which can be used to design specific band gaps or dispersion branches. However, creating a two-dimensional magnonic crystal usually requires removing material, which dramatically decreases the decay lengths of spin waves. Here, we present a method to manipulate the demagnetizing field landscape by utilizing large-area curvilinear nanotemplates consisting of three-dimensional nanopyramids arranged in a square lattice with a period of 400 nm. In a 50-nm-thick Permalloy film grown on these curvilinear templates, we experimentally observe a complete in-plane band gap together with flat-band modes that exhibit strong real-space localization of the spin waves in the pyramid valleys. Micro-focused Brillouin light scattering measurements corroborate the numerically predicted dispersion and reveal the possibility of opening and closing this gap by varying the external magnetic field. Our results establish three-dimensional-templated continuous films as a versatile platform for two-dimensional signal processing and magnonic computing elements.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2026

Laterally Differentiated Polymorphs: a route to multifunctional nanostructures

Multifunctional materials can exhibit emergent behavior from the coupling of two or more different properties. For example, coupling between magnetic and ferroelectric order enables electrical control of the magnetic state, enabling for example magnetoelectric memory or logic devices that combine the nonvolatility of magnetic order with the energy efficiency of voltage control. Magnetic iron garnets have outstanding magnonic and magnetooptical properties making them valuable in a range of technologies, but they have not been successfully incorporated into thin film two-phase magnetoelectric nanocomposites. Taking advantage of heterogeneously patterned substrates, this work demonstrates the engineering of garnet-perovskite composites in which both phases are polymorphs with the same composition but dramatically different structures and properties. Applying an electric field to the perovskite phase modulates the magnon dispersion and magnetooptical response of the garnet, opening a path to voltage-controlled garnet devices.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2026

Precise control of crystallography and magnetism in focused-ion-beam transformed iron-nickel thin films

Focused ion beam irradiation of metastable Fe$_{78}$Ni$_{22}$ thin films grown on Cu(100) substrates results in the localized transformation of the originally paramagnetic, face-centered-cubic continuous film into ferromagnetic patterns with body-centered-cubic structure. The direction of the magnetic easy axis can be controlled by the focused ion beam scanning strategy, resulting in eight differently oriented crystallographic domains with different magnetic properties. We study the local crystallographic orientations of the transformed areas by electron backscatter diffraction and correlate these results with local magnetometry measurements. The observed magnetic anisotropy can be explained as a result of residual lattice strain after the fcc$\to$bcc transformation. These results extend the understanding of this material system and its transformation and allow for the patterning of high-quality magnetic nanostructures with precisely controlled magnetization landscapes.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2026

Polarization-resolved measurement of forward volume spin waves by micro-focused Brillouin light scattering

We show how the micro-focused BLS signal of forward volume spin waves is formed and why it remains observable despite symmetry-based "suppression" expectations. A reciprocity-theorem based model with vectorial diffraction-limited focusing identifies the nonnegligible longitudinal focal-field component as the key element responsible for BLS sensitivity in the forward volume geometry. We further demonstrate that full polarization analysis, implemented through polarizer-analyzer maps of coherently excited spin waves, provides information beyond the conventional crossed polarizer-analyzer readout. In a BiYIG thin film, the measured maps exhibit Stokes/anti-Stokes polarization asymmetries and nontrivial patterns that stem from quadratic magneto-optical coupling terms. Fitting the data with a model including Voigt and Cotton-Mouton contributions yields an effective Cotton-Mouton constant and shows that the quadratic response is comparable to the linear Voigt contribution.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2026

SpinWaveToolkit: Python package for (semi-)analytical calculations in the field of spin-wave physics

We present an open-source Python package, SpinWaveToolkit (SWT), for (semi-)analytical modeling of spin-wave dynamics in thin ferromagnetic films and exchange-coupled magnetic bilayers. SWT combines analytical models based on the Kalinikos-Slavin theory with a semi-analytical dynamic-matrix approach, enabling the calculation of dispersion relations, group velocities, decay lengths, mode profiles, and static equilibrium magnetization states. In addition, SWT implements a quantitative model of micro-focused Brillouin light scattering (BLS) that incorporates vectorial optical focusing, spin-wave Bloch functions, magneto-optical coupling, and Green-function propagation to simulate experimentally measured BLS spectra. The package is validated against finite-element dynamic-matrix simulations performed with TetraX for Damon-Eshbach, backward-volume, forward-volume, and oblique-field geometries, showing excellent agreement while reducing computation times by nearly two orders of magnitude in comparison to the numerical simulations. Thanks to the easiness of the use and fast calculation times, SWT can be used not only for exploratory mapping of the parameter space, but also for the fitting of the measured dispersion relations and related parameters. Thus, it provides a versatile and efficient framework for experiment design, interpretation, and parameter optimization for magnonics research.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2025

Ultrafast propagation of magnon-polaritons

The manipulation of magnetization lies at the heart of spintronic and magnonic technologies, with the ultimate performance of such systems limited by the velocity at which magnetic excitations can propagate. Here, we demonstrate ultrafast propagation of magnon-polaritons-hybrid quasiparticles arising from the coupling between spin waves and electromagnetic fields in thin pure, bismuth-, and gallium substituted yttrium iron garnet (YIG, Bi:YIG and Ga:YIG) films. Using time- and phase-resolved Brillouin light scattering microscopy and time-resolved scanning transmission microscopy, we show that magnon-polaritons can propagate faster than 100 km/s, nearly three orders of magnitude more than conventional spin waves, and can be observed at distances exceeding 40 micrometers in 20 nm thick films. Analytical modeling based on retarded Maxwell equations and Polder tensor formalism confirms the hybridized nature of the excitations and captures the nontrivial dispersion and attenuation profiles. Notably, the magnon-polaritons maintain high initial magnetization amplitudes and long decay lengths, enabling ultrafast manipulation of the magnetization far away from the excitation source. We show, that they can move domain walls or stabilize nonlinear magnetization processes. The unprecedentedly high propagation velocities make magnon-polaritons promising candidates for high-speed information transfer in future spin-based computing architectures, potentially overcoming long-standing group delay bottlenecks in magnonic logic circuits.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2025

Modeling of the micro-focused Brillouin light scattering spectra

Although micro-focused Brillouin light scattering (BLS) has been used for more than twenty years, it lacks a complete theoretical description. This complicates the analysis of experimental data and significantly limits the information that can be obtained. To fill this knowledge gap, we have developed a semi-analytical model based on the mesoscopic continuous medium approach. The model consists of the following steps: calculation of the incident electric field and the dynamic susceptibility, calculation of the induced polarisation, and calculation of the emitted electric field and its propagation towards the detector. We demonstrate the model on the examples of the measurements of thermal and coherently excited spin waves. However, the used approach is general and can describe any micro-focused Brillouin light scattering experiment. The model can also bring new analytical approaches to mechanobiology experiments or to characterization of acoustic wave based devices.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2025

Mie-enhanced micro-focused Brillouin light scattering with wavevector resolution

Magnons, the quanta of spin waves, are magnetic excitations of matter spanning through the entire crystal's Brillouin zone and covering a wide range of frequencies ranging from sub-gigahertz to hundreds of terahertz. Magnons play a crucial role in many condensed matter phenomena, such as the reduction of saturation magnetization with increasing temperature or Bose-Einstein condensation. However, current experimental techniques cannot resolve magnons with wavevectors between 30 and 300$\,$rad$\,μ$m$^{-1}$. In this letter, we address this gap by tailoring the light in Brillouin light scattering process with dielectric periodic nanoresonators and thus gaining access to the previously unmeasurable spin waves with full wavevector resolution using table-top optical setup. Filling this gap can stimulate further experimental investigations of the fundamental phenomena associated with magnons but also stimulate the application of magnonics in computational and microwave devices. In addition, the same methodology can be applied to other excitations of matter, such as phonons, opening up new possibilities in e.g. mechanobiological studies.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2024

Unidirectional propagation of zero-momentum magnons

We report on experimental observation of unidirectional propagation of zero-momentum magnons in synthetic antiferromagnet consisting of strained CoFeB/Ru/CoFeB trilayer. Inherent non-reciprocity of spin waves in synthetic antiferromagnets with uniaxial anisotropy results in smooth and monotonous dispersion relation around Gamma point, where the direction of the phase velocity is reversed, while the group velocity direction is conserved. The experimental observation of this phenomenon by intensity-, phase-, and time-resolved Brillouin light scattering microscopy is corroborated by analytical models and micromagnetic simulations.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2023

Zero-field spin wave turns

Spin-wave computing, a potential successor to CMOS-based technologies, relies on the efficient manipulation of spin waves for information processing. While basic logic devices like magnon transistors, gates, and adders have been experimentally demonstrated, the challenge for complex magnonic circuits lies in steering spin waves through sharp turns. In this study we demonstrate with micromagnetic simulations and Brillouin light scattering microscopy experiments, that dipolar spin waves can propagate through 90-degree turns without distortion. The key lies in carefully designed in-plane magnetization landscapes, addressing challenges posed by anisotropic dispersion. The experimental realization of the required magnetization landscape is enabled by spatial manipulation of the uniaxial anisotropy using corrugated magnonic waveguides. The findings presented in this work should be considered in any magnonic circuit design dealing with anisotropic dispersion and spin wave turns.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2023

Phase-resolved optical characterization of nanoscale spin waves

We study theoretically and experimentally the process of Brillouin light scattering on an array of silicon disks on a thin Permalloy layer. We show that phase-resolved Brillouin light scattering microscopy performed on an array of weakly interacting dielectric nanoresonators can detect nanoscale waves and measure their dispersion. In our experiment, we were able to map the evolution of the phase of the spin wave with a wavelength of 209 nm with a precision of 6 nm. These results demonstrate the feasibility of all-optical phase-resolved characterization of nanoscale spin waves.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2022

Observing high-k magnons with Mie-resonance-enhanced Brillouin light scattering

Magnonics is a prospective beyond CMOS technology which uses magnons, the quanta of spin waves, for low-power information processing. Many magnonic concepts and devices were recently demonstrated at macro- and microscale, and now these concepts need to be realized at nanoscale. Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy and microscopy (BLS) has become a standard technique for spin wave visualization and characterization, and enabled many pioneering magnonic experiments. However, due to its fundamental limit in maximum detectable magnon momentum, the conventional BLS cannot be used to detect nanoscale spin waves. Here we show that optically induced Mie resonances in dielectric nanoparticles can be used to extend the range of accessible spin wave wavevectors beyond the BLS fundamental limit. The method is universal and can be used in many magnonic experiments dealing with thermally excited as well as coherently excited high-momentum, short-wavelength spin waves. This discovery significantly extends the usability and relevance of the BLS technique for nanoscale magnonic research.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Wideband Brillouin light scattering analysis of spin waves excited by a white-noise RF generator

Spin waves are studied intensively for their intriguing properties and potential use in future technology platforms for the transfer and processing of information and microwave signals. The development of devices and materials for spin-wave systems requires a lot of measurement time and effort, and thus increasing the measurement throughput by extending the instrumentation capabilities is of the essence. In this letter, we report on a new and straightforward approach to increase the measurement throughput by fully exploiting the wideband detection nature of the Brillouin light scattering technique in single-shot experiments using a white-noise RF generator.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Deeply nonlinear excitation of self-normalised exchange spin waves

Spin waves are ideal candidates for wave-based computing, but the construction of magnetic circuits is blocked by a lack of an efficient mechanism to excite long-running exchange spin waves with normalised amplitudes. Here, we solve the challenge by exploiting the deeply nonlinear phenomena of forward-volume spin waves in 200 nm wide nanoscale waveguides and validate our concept with microfocused Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy. An unprecedented nonlinear frequency shift of >2 GHz is achieved, corresponding to a magnetisation precession angle of 55° and enabling the excitation of exchange spin waves with a wavelength of down to ten nanometres with an efficiency of >80%. The amplitude of the excited spin waves is constant and independent of the input microwave power due to the self-locking nonlinear shift, enabling robust adjustment of the spin wave amplitudes in future on-chip magnonic integrated circuits.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2021

Spin-wave dispersion measurement by variable-gap propagating spin-wave spectroscopy

Magnonics is seen nowadays as a candidate technology for energy-efficient data processing in classical and quantum systems. Pronounced nonlinearity, anisotropy of dispersion relations and phase degree of freedom of spin waves require advanced methodology for probing spin waves at room as well as at mK temperatures. Yet, the use of the established optical techniques like Brillouin light scattering (BLS) or magneto optical Kerr effect (MOKE) at ultra-low temperatures is forbiddingly complicated. By contrast, microwave spectroscopy can be used at all temperatures but is usually lacking spatial and wavenumber resolution. Here, we develop a variable-gap propagating spin-wave spectroscopy (VG-PSWS) method for the deduction of the dispersion relation of spin waves in wide frequency and wavenumber range. The method is based on the phase-resolved analysis of the spin-wave transmission between two antennas with variable spacing, in conjunction with theoretical data treatment. We validate the method for the in-plane magnetized CoFeB and YIG thin films in $k\perp B$ and $k\parallel B$ geometries by deducing the full set of material and spin-wave parameters, including spin-wave dispersion, hybridization of the fundamental mode with the higher-order perpendicular standing spin-wave modes and surface spin pinning. The compatibility of microwaves with low temperatures makes this approach attractive for cryogenic magnonics at the nanoscale.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗