arXiv subjects

Tobias Wimmer

Publications and source records attributed to Tobias Wimmer.

13 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2023

Electrically induced angular momentum flow between separated ferromagnets

Converting angular momentum between different degrees of freedom within a magnetic material results from a dynamic interplay between electrons, magnons and phonons. This interplay is pivotal to implementing spintronic device concepts that rely on spin angular momentum transport. We establish a new concept for long-range angular momentum transport that further allows to address and isolate the magnonic contribution to angular momentum transport in a nanostructured metallic ferromagnet. To this end, we electrically excite and detect spin transport between two parallel and electrically insulated ferromagnetic metal strips on top of a diamagnetic substrate. Charge-to-spin current conversion within the ferromagnetic strip generates electronic spin angular momentum that is transferred to magnons via electron-magnon coupling. We observe a finite angular momentum flow to the second ferromagnetic strip across a diamagnetic substrate over micron distances, which is electrically detected in the second strip by the inverse charge-to-spin current conversion process. We discuss phononic and dipolar interactions as the likely cause to transfer angular momentum between the two strips. Moreover, our work provides the experimental basis to separate the electronic and magnonic spin transport and thereby paves the way towards magnonic device concepts that do not rely on magnetic insulators.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Influence of low-energy magnons on magnon Hanle experiments in easy-plane antiferromagnets

Antiferromagnetic materials host pairs of spin-up and spin-down magnons which can be described in terms of a magnonic pseudospin. The close analogy between this magnonic pseudospin systems and that of electronic charge carriers led to the prediction of fascinating phenomena in antiferromagnets. Recently, the associated dynamics of antiferromagnetic pseudospin has been experimentally demonstrated and, in particular, the first observation of the magnon Hanle effect has been reported. We here expand the magnonic spin transport description by explicitly taking into account contributions of finite-spin low-energy magnons. In our experiments we realize the spin injection and detection process by two Platinum strips and investigate the influence of the Pt-strips on the generation and diffusive transport of magnons in films of the antiferromagnetic insulator hematite. For both a 15 nm and a 100 nm thick film, we find a distinct signal caused by the magnon Hanle effect. However, the magnonic spin signal exhibits clear differences in both films. In contrast to the thin film, for the thicker one, we observe an oscillating behavior in the high magnetic field range as well as an additional offset signal in the low magnetic field regime. We attribute this offset signal to the presence of finite-spin low-energy magnons.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Magnon transport in $\mathrm{\mathbf{Y_3Fe_5O_{12}}}$/Pt nanostructures with reduced effective magnetization

For applications making use of magnonic spin currents damping effects, which decrease the spin conductivity, have to be minimized. We here investigate the magnon transport in an yttrium iron garnet thin film with strongly reduced effective magnetization. We show that in a three-terminal device the effective magnon conductivity can be increased by a factor of up to six by a current applied to a modulator electrode, which generates damping compensation above a threshold current. Moreover, we find a linear dependence of this threshold current on the applied magnetic field. We can explain this behavior by the reduced effective magnetization and the associated nearly circular magnetization precession.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Low Temperature Suppression of the Spin Nernst Angle in Pt

We demonstrate the low temperature suppression of the platinum (Pt) spin Nernst angle in bilayers consisting of the antiferromagnetic insulator hematite ($α$-Fe$_2$O$_3$) and Pt upon measuring the transverse spin Nernst magnetothermopower (TSNM). We show that the observed signal stems from the interplay between the interfacial spin accumulation in Pt originating from the spin Nernst effect and the orientation of the Néel vector of $α$-Fe$_2$O$_3$, rather than its net magnetization. Since the latter is negligible in an antiferromagnet, our device is superior to ferromagnetic structures, allowing to unambiguously distinguish the TSNM from thermally excited magnon transport (TMT), which usually dominates in ferri/ferromagnets due to their non-zero magnetization. Evaluating the temperature dependence of the effect, we observe a vanishing TSNM below ~100 K. We compare these results with theoretical calculations of the temperature dependent spin Nernst conductivity and find excellent agreement. This provides evidence for a vanishing spin Nernst angle of Pt at low temperatures and the dominance of extrinsic contributions to the spin Nernst effect.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2020

Observation of Antiferromagnetic Magnon Pseudospin Dynamics and the Hanle effect

We report on experiments demonstrating coherent control of magnon spin transport and pseudospin dynamics in a thin film of the antiferromagnetic insulator hematite utilizing two Pt strips for all-electrical magnon injection and detection. The measured magnon spin signal at the detector reveals an oscillation of its polarity as a function of the externally applied magnetic field. We quantitatively explain our experiments in terms of diffusive magnon transport and a coherent precession of the magnon pseudospin caused by the easy-plane anisotropy and the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. This experimental observation can be viewed as the magnonic analogue of the electronic Hanle effect and the Datta-Das transistor, unlocking the high potential of antiferromagnetic magnonics towards the realization of rich electronics-inspired phenomena.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2020

Antiferromagnetic magnon pseudospin: Dynamics and diffusive transport

We formulate a theoretical description of antiferromagnetic magnons and their transport in terms of an associated pseudospin. The need and strength of this formulation emerges from the antiferromagnetic eigenmodes being formed from superpositions of spin-up and -down magnons, depending on the material anisotropies. Consequently, a description analogous to that of spin-1/2 electrons is demonstrated while accounting for the bosonic nature of the antiferromagnetic eigenmodes. Introducing the concepts of a pseudospin chemical potential together with a pseudofield and relating magnon spin to pseudospin allows a consistent description of diffusive spin transport in antiferromagnetic insulators with any given anisotropies and interactions. Employing the formalism developed, we elucidate the general features of recent non-local spin transport experiments in antiferromagnetic insulators hosting magnons with different polarisations. The pseudospin formalism developed herein is valid for any pair of coupled bosons and is likely to be useful in other systems comprising interacting bosonic modes.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2020

Quantitative comparison of magnon transport experiments in three-terminal YIG/Pt nanostructures acquired via dc and ac detection techniques

All-electrical generation and detection of pure spin currents is a promising way towards controlling the diffusive magnon transport in magnetically ordered insulators. We quantitatively compare two measurement schemes, which allow to measure the magnon spin transport in a three-terminal device based on a yttrium iron garnet thin film. We demonstrate that the dc charge current method based on the current reversal technique and the ac charge current method utilizing first and second harmonic lock-in detection can both efficiently distinguish between electrically and thermally injected magnons. In addition, both measurement schemes allow to investigate the modulation of magnon transport induced by an additional dc charge current applied to the center modulator strip. However, while at low modulator charge current both schemes yield identical results, we find clear differences above a certain threshold current. This difference originates from nonlinear effects of the modulator current on the magnon conductance.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Spin transport in a magnetic insulator with zero effective damping

Applications based on spin currents strongly profit from the control and reduction of their effective damping and their transport properties. We here experimentally observe magnon mediated transport of spin (angular) momentum through a 13.4 nm thin yttrium iron garnet film with full control of the magnetic damping via spin-orbit torque. Above a critical spin-orbit torque, the fully compensated damping manifests itself as an increase of magnon conductivity by almost two orders of magnitude. We compare our results to theoretical expectations based on recently predicted current induced magnon condensates and discuss other possible origins of the observed critical behaviour.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2019

Anomalous spin Hall angle of a metallic ferromagnet determined by a multiterminal spin injection/detection device

We report on the determination of the anomalous spin Hall angle in the ferromagnetic metal alloy cobalt-iron (Co$_{25}$Fe$_{75}$, CoFe). This is accomplished by measuring the spin injection/detection efficiency in a multiterminal device with nanowires of platinum (Pt) and CoFe deposited onto the magnetic insulator yttrium iron garnet (Y$_3$Fe$_5$O$_{12}$, YIG). Applying a spin-resistor model to our multiterminal spin transport data, we determine the magnon conductivity in YIG, the spin conductance at the YIG/CoFe interface and finally the anomalous spin Hall angle of CoFe as a function of its spin diffusion length in a single device. Our experiments clearly reveal a negative anomalous spin Hall angle of the ferromagnetic metal CoFe, but a vanishing ordinary spin Hall angle. This is in contrast to the results reported for the ferromagnetic metals Co and permalloy.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Current direction anisotropy of the spin Hall magnetoresistance in nickel ferrite thin films with bulk-like magnetic properties

We utilize spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) measurements to experimentally investigate the pure spin current transport and magnetic properties of nickel ferrite (NiFe2O4,NFO)/normal metal (NM) thin film heterostructures. We use (001)-oriented NFO thin films grown on lattice-matched magnesium gallate substrates by pulsed laser deposition, which significantly improves the magnetic and structural properties of the ferrimagnetic insulator. The NM in our experiments is either Pt or Ta. A comparison of the obtained SMR magnitude for charge currents applied in the [100]- and [110]-direction of NFO yields a change of 50% for Pt at room temperature. We also investigated the temperature dependence of this current direction anisotropy and find that it is qualitatively different for the conductivity and the SMR magnitude. From our results we conclude that the observed current direction anisotropy may originate from an anisotropy of the spin mixing conductance or of the spin Hall effect in these Pt and Ta layers, and/or additional spin-galvanic contributions from the NFO/NM interface.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Non-local magnon transport in the compensated ferrimagnet GdIG

We study the diffusive transport of magnons through the compensated ferrimagnetic insulator Gd3Fe5O12 (GdIG). The magnons are injected and detected electrically in a non-local measurement configuration via two parallel Pt strips deposited on top of the ferrimagnet. GdIG exhibits a rich magnon spectrum, with several thermally populated magnon bands at room temperature. We observe a strong temperature and field dependence of the non-local voltage in the detector strip. Just below the magnetization compensation temperature we find that the increasing magnetic field causes an unexpected enhancement of the non-local signal. A comparison with GdIG spin wave spectra obtained from atomistic modeling indicates that the thermal magnon population is important for understanding the non-local voltage signal.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Temperature dependence of the non-local spin Seebeck effect in YIG/Pt nanostructures

We study the transport of thermally excited non-equilibrium magnons through the ferrimagnetic insulator YIG using two electrically isolated Pt strips as injector and detector. The diffusing magnons induce a non- local inverse spin Hall voltage in the detector corresponding to the so-called non-local spin Seebeck effect (SSE). We measure the non-local SSE as a function of temperature and strip separation. In experiments at room temperature we observe a sign change of the non-local SSE voltage at a characteristic strip separation d0, in agreement with previous investigations. At lower temperatures however, we find a strong temperature dependence of d0. This suggests that both the angular momentum transfer across the YIG/Pt interface as well as the transport mechanism of the magnons in YIG as a function of temperature must be taken into account to describe the non-local spin Seebeck effect.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Magnon based logic in a multi-terminal YIG/Pt nanostructure

Boolean logic is the foundation of modern digital information processing. Recently, there has been a growing interest in phenomena based on pure spin currents, which allow to move from charge to spin based logic gates. We study a proof-of-principle logic device based on the ferrimagnetic insulator Yttrium Iron Garnet (YIG), with Pt strips acting as injectors and detectors for nonequilibrium magnons. We experimentally observe incoherent superposition of magnons generated by different injectors. This allows to implement a fully functional majority gate, enabling multiple logic operations (AND and OR) in one and the same device. Clocking frequencies of the order of several GHz and straightforward down-scaling make our device promising for applications.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗