arXiv subjects

Yoshichika Otani

Publications and source records attributed to Yoshichika Otani.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Nonreciprocity reversal of magnetoacoustic attenuation in NiFe alloy thin films

Nonreciprocity, the asymmetry of transport, underlies technologies from the diode to the microwave isolator. In a ferromagnet, a surface acoustic wave generates an elliptical effective field with propagation-locked handedness, breaking the reciprocity of its propagation. Despite decades of study on this phenomenon, a method for controlling the sign of the nonreciprocity has remained elusive. Here we observe a sign reversal in Ni$_x$Fe$_{100-x}$ films. A 0.8 at.% change across Permalloy's zero-magnetostriction composition, where the magnetoelastic coefficient $b$ changes sign, reverses the handedness of the elliptical effective field and thereby the nonreciprocity, from 78.6% to -61.8%. Angle-dependent measurements and spin-wave-ellipticity modelling show that reversing the sign of $b$ reverses the handedness of the elliptically polarized effective field. Aided by cubic frequency scaling, we resolve the sign of $b$ down to -0.05 MPa in a 10-nm film, establishing nonreciprocity as a nanoscale probe of magnetoelastic coupling.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2026

Crossover between intrinsic and temperature-assisted regimes in spin-orbit torque switching of antiferromagnetic order

Intensive studies have been made on antiferromagnets as candidate materials for next generation memory bits due to their ultrafast dynamics reaching picosecond time scales. Recent demonstrations of electrical bidirectional switching of antiferromagnetic states have attracted significant attention. However, under the presence of significant Joule heating that destabilizes the magnetic order, the timescales associated with the switching can be limited to nanoseconds or longer. Here, we present the observation of a crossover in the switching behavior of the chiral antiferromagnet Mn3Sn by tuning the magnetic layer thickness. While Joule heating interferes with switching in thicker devices, we find clear signatures of an intrinsic spin-orbit torque mechanism as the thickness is reduced, avoiding the heating effect. The suppression of heating enables switching without significant attenuation of the readout signal using pulses shorter than those required by temperature-assisted mechanisms. The crossover into the spin-orbit torque switching behavior clarifies the potential for achieving ultrafast switching as expected from the picosecond spin dynamics of antiferromagnets. Our results lay the groundwork for designing antiferromagnetic memory devices that can operate at ultrafast timescales.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2026

Spin Hall effect in van der Waals ferromagnet Fe$_{5}$GeTe$_{2}$

We investigate the spin Hall effect (SHE) in a van der Waals (vdW) ferromagnet Fe$_{5}$GeTe$_{2}$ (FGT) with a Curie temperature $T_{\rm C}$ of 310 K utilizing the spin-torque ferromagnetic resonance method. In synchronization with the emergence of the ferromagnetic phase resulting in the anomalous Hall effect (AHE), a noticeable enhancement in the SHE was observed below $T_{\rm C}$. On the other hand, the SHE shows a different temperature dependence from the AHE: the effective spin Hall conductivity is clearly enhanced with decreasing temperature unlike the anomalous Hall conductivity, reflecting the variation of band-structure accompanied by the complicated magnetic ordering of the FGT. The results provide a deep understanding of the SHE in magnetic materials to open a new route for novel functionalities in vdW materials-based spintronic devices.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2025

Harmonic and Subharmonic Magnon Generation in a Surface Acoustic Wave Resonator

We experimentally observe the generation of magnon harmonics and subharmonics in an on-chip surface acoustic wave resonator incorporating a thin Co$_{20}$Fe$_{60}$B$_{20}$ film, using micro-focused Brillouin light scattering. In our devices, rotating the in-plane magnetic field allows continuous tuning of the magnon-phonon coupling from weak to strong within the same resonator. In the weak coupling regime, we only observe fundamental magnetoelastic wave signal at $f_{1}$. Conversely, in the strong coupling regime, in addition to the fundamental magnetoelastic wave, we observe subharmonic and harmonic signals at $3/2f_{1}$, $2f_{1}$, and $3f_{1}$, which are well reproduced by our analytical model. Our results establish phonons as a means to generate and control nonlinear magnons in the strong coupling regime, providing a new route for magnonic signal processing.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2025

Nonreciprocally Boosting Magnetoacoustic Coupling with Surface-Acoustic-Wave-induced Spin Transfer Torque

Strengthening magnetoacoustic coupling is crucial to the improvement of the surface acoustic wave (SAW)-driven spintronics devices. A key challenge in enhancing magnetoacoustic coupling is minimizing the phonon and magnon dissipation of the device, which usually requires complicated techniques for generating shear-horizontal (SH) or standing waves to suppress the phonon dissipation. In this work, we significantly strengthened the magnetoacoustic coupling by suppressing the magnon dissipation via the SAW-induced spin-transfer-torque (STT) in Co/Cu/NiFe multilayer, which is facilitated by the non-parallel magnetization alignment between the two ferromagnetic layers. Also, this STT exhibits the form of Zhang-Li torque due to the SAW-induced spin wave, which gives rise to the unique nonreciprocal SAW transportation under external magnetic field. This finding opens new avenues for non-reciprocally boosting magnetoacoustic coupling, which pays the way for developing on-chip SAW-driven multifunctional devices.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2025

Nonlocal Electrical Detection of Reciprocal Orbital Edelstein Effect

Spin-Orbitronics leverages the spin and orbital degrees of freedom in solids for information processing. The orbital Edelstein effect and orbital Hall effect, where the charge current induces a nonequilibrium orbital angular momentum, offer a promising method to manipulate nanomagnets efficiently using light elements. Despite extensive research, understanding the Onsager reciprocity of orbital transport, fundamentally rooted in the second law of thermodynamics and time-reversal symmetry, remains elusive. In this study, we experimentally demonstrate the Onsager reciprocity of orbital transport in an orbital Edelstein system by utilizing nonlocal measurements. This method enables the precise identification of the chemical potential generated by orbital accumulation, avoiding the limitations associated with local measurements. Remarkably, we observe that the direct and inverse orbital-charge conversion processes produce identical electric voltages, confirming Onsager reciprocity in orbital transport. Additionally, we find that the orbital decay length, approximately 100 nm at room temperature, is independent of Cu thickness and decreases with lowering temperature, revealing a distinct contrast to spin transport behavior. Our findings provide valuable insights into both the reciprocity of the charge-orbital interconversion and the nonlocal correlation of orbital degree of freedom, laying the ground for orbitronics devices with long-range interconnections.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2024

Spin relaxation of localized electrons in monolayer MoSe$_2$: importance of random effective magnetic fields

We study the Hanle and spin polarization recovery effects on resident electrons in a monolayer MoSe$_2$ on EuS. We demonstrate that localized electrons provide the main contribution to the spin dynamics signal at low temperatures below 15~K for small magnetic fields of only a few mT. The spin relaxation of these electrons is determined by random effective magnetic fields due to a contact spin interaction, namely the hyperfine interaction with the nuclei in MoSe$_2$ or the exchange interaction with the magnetic ions of the EuS film. From the magnetic field angular dependence of the spin polarization we evaluate the anisotropy of the intervalley electron $g$-factor and the spin relaxation time. The non-zero in-plane $g$-factor $|g_x|\approx 0.1$, the value of which is comparable to its dispersion, is attributed to randomly localized electrons in the MoSe$_2$ layer.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2023

Strongly Coupled Spin Waves and Surface Acoustic Waves at Room Temperature

Here, we report the observation of strong coupling between magnons and surface acoustic wave (SAW) phonons in a thin CoFeB film constructed in an on-chip SAW resonator by analyzing SAW phonon dispersion anticrossings. Our device design provides the tunability of the film thickness with a fixed phonon wavelength, which is a departure from the conventional approach in strong magnon--phonon coupling research. We detect a monotonic increase in the coupling strength by expanding the film thickness, which agrees with our theoretical model. Our work offers a significant way to advance fundamental research and the development of devices based on magnon--phonon hybrid quasiparticles.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2023

Valley-Selective Phonon-Magnon Scattering in Magnetoelastic Superlattices

Phonons and magnons are engineered by periodic potential landscapes in phononic and magnonic crystals, and their combined studies may enable valley phonon transport tunable by the magnetic field. Through nonreciprocal surface acoustic wave transmission, we demonstrate valley-selective phonon-magnon scattering in magnetoelastic superlattices. The lattice symmetry and the out-of-plane magnetization component control the sign of nonreciprocity. The phonons in the valleys play a crucial role in generating nonreciprocal transmission by inducing circularly polarized strains that couple with the magnons. The transmission spectra show a nonreciprocity peak near a transmission gap, matching the phononic band structure. Our results open the way for manipulating valley phonon transport through periodically varying magnon-phonon coupling.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2023

Acoustically driven magnon-phonon coupling in a layered antiferromagnet

Harnessing the causal relationships between mechanical and magnetic properties of van der Waals materials presents a wealth of untapped opportunity for scientific and technological advancement, from precision sensing to novel memories. This can, however, only be exploited if the means exist to efficiently interface with the magnetoelastic interaction. Here, we demonstrate acoustically-driven spin-wave resonance in a crystalline antiferromagnet, chromium trichloride, via surface acoustic wave irradiation. The resulting magnon-phonon coupling is found to depend strongly on sample temperature and external magnetic field orientation, and displays a high sensitivity to extremely weak magnetic anisotropy fields in the few~mT range. Our work demonstrates a natural pairing between power-efficient strain-wave technology and the excellent mechanical properties of van der Waals materials, representing a foothold towards widespread future adoption of dynamic magneto-acoustics.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Pattern recognition with neuromorphic computing using magnetic-field induced dynamics of skyrmions

Nonlinear phenomena in physical systems can be used for brain-inspired computing with low energy consumption. Response from the dynamics of a topological spin structure called skyrmion is one of the candidates for such a neuromorphic computing. However, its ability has not been well explored experimentally. Here, we experimentally demonstrate neuromorphic computing using nonlinear response originating from magnetic-field induced dynamics of skyrmions. We designed a simple-structured skyrmion-based neuromorphic device and succeeded in handwritten digit recognition with the accuracy as large as 94.7 % and waveform recognition. Notably, there exists a positive correlation between the recognition accuracy and the number of skyrmions in the devices. The large degree of freedoms of skyrmion systems, such as the position and the size, originate the more complex nonlinear mapping and the larger output dimension, and thus high accuracy. Our results provide a guideline for developing energy-saving and high-performance skyrmion neuromorphic computing devices.

cs.ET↗

arXiv2020

Nonreciprocal surface acoustic wave propagation via magneto-rotation coupling

One of the most fundamental forms of magnon-phonon interaction is an intrinsic property of magnetic materials, the "magnetoelastic coupling". This particular form of interaction has been the basis for describing magnetic materials and their strain related applications, where strain induces changes of internal magnetic fields. Different from the magnetoelastic coupling, more than 40 years ago, it was proposed that surface acoustic waves may induce surface magnons via rotational motion of the lattice in anisotropic magnets. However, a signature of this magnon-phonon coupling mechanism, termed magneto-rotation coupling, has been elusive. Here, we report the first observation and theoretical framework of the magneto-rotation coupling in a perpendicularly anisotropic ultra-thin film Ta/CoFeB(1.6 nm)/MgO, which consequently induces nonreciprocal acoustic wave attenuation with a unprecedented ratio up to 100$\%$ rectification at the theoretically predicted optimized condition. Our work not only experimentally demonstrates a fundamentally new path for investigating magnon-phonon coupling, but also justify the feasibility of the magneto-rotation coupling based application.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Nanochannels for Spin-Wave Manipulation in Ni80Fe20 Nanodot Arrays

Patterned magnetic nanostructures are potential candidates for future energy efficient, on-chip communication devices. Here, we have experimentally and numerically studied the role of nanochannels to manipulate spin waves in Ni80Fe20 connected nanodot arrays of varying filling fraction. Rich spin-wave spectra are observed in these samples, where the number of spin-wave modes decreases with increasing filling fraction due to the retrenchment of the demagnetizing field. The nanochannels affect the spin-wave modes of the connected dots through dipole-exchange coupling. For all modes the vertical nanochannels couple the nanodots, except for the highest frequency modes where all nanochannels act as coupler. This feature is further explored in the simulation, which reveals that only the highest frequency mode can propagate through all the nanochannels, analogues to an electronic demultiplexer. This study will be useful to understand the role of nanochannels in patterned magnetic nanostructures and their applications in spin-wave based communication devices.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Enhancement of acoustic spin pumping by acoustic distributed Bragg reflector cavity

Surface acoustic waves (SAWs) in the GHz frequency range can inject spin currents dynamically into adjacent nonmagnetic layers via spin pumping effect associated with ferromagnetic resonance. Here, we demonstrate an enhancement of acoustic ferromagnetic resonance and spin current generation by a pair of SAW reflector gratings, which form an acoustic analogue of the distributed Bragg reflector cavity. In the experiment, we confirmed 2.04 $\pm$ 0.02 times larger SAW power absorption in a device with cavity than in case of no acoustic cavity. We confirmed up to 2.96 $\pm$ 0.02 times larger spin current generation by measuring electric voltages generated by the inverse Edelstein effect (IEE) at the interface between Cu and Bi$_2$O$_3$. The results suggest that acoustic cavities would be useful to enhance the conversion efficiency in SAW driven coupled magnon-phonon dynamics.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Acoustic ferromagnetic resonance and spin pumping induced by surface acoustic waves

Voltage induced magnetization dynamics of magnetic thin films is a valuable tool to study anisotropic fields, exchange couplings, magnetization damping and spin pumping mechanism. A particularly well established technique is the ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) generated by the coupling of microwave photons and magnetization eigenmodes in the GHz range. Here we review the basic concepts of the so-called acoustic ferromagnetic resonance technique (a-FMR) induced by the coupling of surface acoustic waves (SAW) and magnetization of thin films. Interestingly, additional to the benefits of the microwave excited FMR technique, the coupling between SAW and magnetization also offers fertile ground to study magnon-phonon and spin rotation couplings. We describe the in-plane magnetic field angle dependence of the a-FMR by measuring the absorption / transmission of SAW and the attenuation of SAW in the presence of rotational motion of the lattice, and show the consequent generation of spin current by acoustic spin pumping.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Two-dimensional electron gas in a metal/amorphous oxide interface with spin orbit interaction

The formation of novel two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) with high mobility in metal/amorphous interfaces has motivated an ongoing debate regarding the formation and novel characteristics of these 2DEGs. Here we report an optical study, based on infrared spectroscopic ellipsometry, of nonmagnetic metal and amorphous semiconducting oxide (Cu/Bi$_2$O$_3$) interfaces that confirms the formation of a 2DEG with spin orbit coupling (SOC). The 2DEG optical response was simulated with a uniaxial diagonal dielectric tensor within a sub-nanometer thin layer, where its $x$ and $z$ components lineshapes resolved in both free-electron and peak-like contributions, resulted very similar to theoretical predictions [M. Xie et al., Phys. Rev. B $\bf{89}$, 245417 (2014)] of a two dimensional electron gas confined in the normal direction of a perovskite interface. In particular, the small but finite conducting character of the $z$ component provides a unambiguous signature of the presence of the 2DEG in the Cu/Bi$_2$O$_3$ system. Although the original constituent materials do not possess spin-orbit coupling (SOC), the resulting interfacial hybridization of such states induce electronic asymmetric wave functions. This work demonstrates the detection of 2DEG in amorphous crystals allowing to study its challenging interfacial phenomena such as SOC and interface-bulk coupling, overcoming an experimental impediment which has hold back for decades important advancements for the understanding of 2DEGs in amorphous materials.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Photoinduced Rashba spin to charge conversion via interfacial unoccupied state

At interfaces with inversion symmetry breaking, Rashba effect couples the motion of electrons to their spin; as a result, spin-charge interconversion mechanism can occur. These interconversion mechanisms commonly exploit Rashba spin splitting at the Fermi level by spin pumping or spin torque ferromagnetic resonance. Here, we report evidence of significant photoinduced spin to charge conversion via Rashba spin splitting in an unoccupied state above the Fermi level at the Cu(111)/$α$-Bi$_{2}$O$_{3}$ interface. We predict an average Rashba coefficient of $1.72\times 10^{-10}eV.m$ at 1.98 eV above the Fermi level, by fully relativistic first-principles analysis of the interfacial electronic structure with spin orbit interaction. We find agreement with our observation of helicity dependent photoinduced spin to charge conversion excited at 1.96 eV at room temperature, with spin current generation of $J_{s}=10^{6}A/m^{2}$. The present letter shows evidence of efficient spin-charge conversion exploiting Rashba spin splitting at excited states, harvesting light energy without magnetic materials or external magnetic fields.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Tunable Angle Dependent Magnetization Dynamics in Ni80Fe20 Nano-cross Structures of Varying Size

We demonstrate a large angular dependence of magnetization dynamics in Ni80Fe20 nano-cross arrays of varying sizes. By subtle variation of the azimuthal angle of an in-plane bias magnetic field, the spin configuration and the ensuing spin-wave dynamics, including mode softening, mode splitting, mode crossover and mode merging, can be drastically varied to the extent that a frequency minimum corresponding to mode softening converts to a mode crossover, various mode splitting and mode crossover disappear and additional mode splitting appears. Numerically simulated spin-wave spectra and phase profiles revealed the nature of various spin-wave modes and the origin of above variation of the dynamics with bias-field angle. All of these above observations are further modified with the variation of dimensions of the nano-cross. The numerically calculated magnetostatic field distributions further supports the variation of dynamics with bias-field angle. These results open a new avenue for engineering the nano-cross based magnetic devices such as magnetic storage, spin-wave logic and on-chip data communication devices.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗