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Sep 15, 2022

Physicists generate new nanoscale spin waves

Posted by in categories: nanotechnology, particle physics

Strong alternating magnetic fields can be used to generate a new type of spin wave that was previously just theoretically predicted. This was achieved for the first time by a team of physicists from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU). They report on their work in Nature Communications and provide the first microscopic images of these spin waves.

The basic idea of spintronics is to use a special property of electrons—spin—for various electronic applications such as data and . The spin is the intrinsic angular momentum of electrons that produces a magnetic moment. Coupling these magnetic moments creates the magnetism that could ultimately be used in . When these coupled are locally excited by a pulse, this dynamic can spread like waves throughout the material. These are referred to as spin waves or magnons.

A special type of those waves is at the heart of the work of the physicists from Halle. Normally, the non-linear excitation of magnons produces integers of the output frequency—1,000 megahertz becomes 2,000 or 3,000, for example.

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