Kontakt

Porträt Dr. Kakay, Attila; FWIN-C

Dr. Attila Kakay

Leiter
Micromagnetic Modeling Gruppenleiter
Mikromagnetische Modellie­rung
a.kakayAthzdr.de
Tel.: +49 351 260 3410

Micromagnetic Modeling


Recent progress in material science has enabled the first experimental studies concerning the static magnetization characterization of samples with tubular geometry, such as rolled-up structures, nanowires and nanotubes. The bending of a flat thin-film to a curved surface introduces a break of the local inversion symmetry and can lead to surprising phenomena which do not unfold in flat geometries. As an example, domain walls in nanotubes  show a chiral symmetry breaking regarding their propagation and moreover can propagate so fast that can trigger a  Cherenkov-type spin-wave radiation. A further example is that this lack of inversion symmetry leads to an asymmetric dispersion relation for the spin waves regarding the sign of the propagation vector. This is a purely curvature induced effect with its origin in the classical dipole-dipole interaction.

To study the effect of curvature on the magnetization dynamics often requires the knowledge about the spin-wave eigenmode spectrum. This is usually obtained by micromagnetic simulations solving the equation of motion of magnetization. Despite their flexibility, the classical time-domain micromagnetic simulations can be time-consuming, rely on high-performance GPUs, and need extensive post-processing. Thus, they are not suited to study magnons in complex systems.

During the last year we developed a finite-element method to rapidly obtain the spin-wave spectra in waveguides with arbitrarily-shaped cross-sections without any post-processing. This reduced the computational time from several days to minutes. Part of this endeavor was developing a novel finite-element/boundary-element method to compute long-range fields generated by propagating magnons [L. Körber, et al., AIP Adv. 11, 095006 (2021)]. Due to its flexibility and usefulness for the study of spin waves, the method was made available to the scientific community in the open-source package TetraX

 

TetraX is a package for finite-element-method (FEM) micromagnetic modeling with the aim to provide user friendly and versatile micromagnetic workflows. Apart from energy minimizers and an LLG solver, it aims to provide implementations of several FEM dynamic-matrix approaches to numerically calculate the normal modes and associated frequencies for magnetic specimen of different geometries such as confined samples, infinitely long waveguides, or infinitely extended multilayers. Apart from ferromagnets, the package also supports antiferromagnets as an experimental feature.

Research Topics

  • Spin textures in curved geometries
  • Spin-wave propagation in curved nano-membranes
  • Development of micromagnetic codes and numerical methods

Research Projects

  • DFG: 3D transport of spin waves in curved nano-membranes
  • DACH: Curvature-induced effects in magnetic nanostructures, in collaboration with:
    • Prof. M. Huth, Goethe Universität, Frankfurth am Main
    • Dr. Denys Makarov, HZDR
    • Dr. Oleksandr Dobrovolskiy, Universotät Wien
  • DAAD: Influence of curvature and topology on spin-wave transport
    • Bilateral Exchange of Academics with Chile, Dr. J. A. Otálora from Universidad Católica del Norte 

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Henrik Schulz and Jens Lasch for their continuous support of our computational infrastructure.


Recent publications

Full list availabe here.

2018

Frequency linewidth and decay length of spin waves in curved magnetic membranes

Otalora, J. A.; Kákay, A.; Lindner, J.; Schultheiss, H.; Thomas, A.; Fassbender, J.; Nielsch, K.

Abstract

The curvature of a magnetic membrane was presented as a means of inducing nonreciprocities in the spin-wave (SW) dispersion relation [see Otalora et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 227203 (2017) and Otalora et al. Phys. Rev. B 95, 184415 (2017)], thereby expanding the toolbox for controlling SWs. In this paper, we further complement this toolbox by analytically showing that the membrane curvature is also manifested in the absorption of SWs, leading to a difference in the frequency linewidth (or lifetime) of counterpropagating magnons. Herein, we studied the nanotubular case, predicting changes of approximately greater than 10% and up to 20% in the frequency linewidth of counterpropagating SWs for a wide range of nanotube radii ranging from 30 nm to 260 nm and with a thickness of 10 nm. These percentages are comparable to those that can be extracted from experiments on heavy metal/magnetic metal sandwiches, wherein linewidth asymmetry results from an interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI). We also show that the interplay between the frequency linewidth and group velocity leads to asymmetries in the SW decay length, presenting changes between 10% and 22% for counterpropagating SWs in the frequency range of 2-10 GHz. For the case of the SW dispersion relation, the predicted effects are identified as the classical dipole-dipole interaction, and the analytical expression of the frequency linewidth has the same mathematical form as in thin films with the DMI. Furthermore, we present limiting cases of a tubular geometry with negligible curvature such that our analytical model converges to the case of a planar thin film known from the literature. Our findings represent a step forward toward the realization of three-dimensional curvilinear magnonic devices.

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Permalink: https://www.hzdr.de/publications/Publ-27753


Origin and Manipulation of Stable Vortex Ground States in Permalloy Nanotubes

Zimmermann, M.; Gerhard-Meier, T. N.; Dirnberger, F.; Kákay, A.; Decker, M.; Wintz, S.; Finizio, S.; Josten, E.; Raabe, J.; Kronseder, M.; Bougeard, D.; Lindner, J.; Back, C. H.

Abstract

We present a detailed study on the static magnetic properties of individual permalloy nanotubes (NTs) with hexagonal cross-sections. Anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) measurements and scanning transmission X-ray microscopy (STXM) are used to investigate their magnetic ground states and its stability. We find that the magnetization in zero applied magnetic field is in a very stable vortex state. Its origin is attributed to a strong growth-induced anisotropy with easy axis perpendicular to the long axis of the tubes. AMR measurements of individual NTs in combination with micromagnetic simulations allow the determination of the magnitude of the growth-induced anisotropy for different types of NT coatings. We show that the strength of the anisotropy can be controlled by introducing a buffer layer underneath the magnetic layer. The magnetic ground states depend on the external magnetic field history and are directly imaged using STXM. Stable vortex domains can be introduced by external magnetic fields and can be erased by radio-frequency magnetic fields applied at the center of the tubes via a strip line antenna.

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Permalink: https://www.hzdr.de/publications/Publ-27435


Multiplet of skyrmion states on a curvilinear defect: Reconfigurable skyrmion lattices

Kravchuk, V. P.; Sheka, D. D.; Kákay, A.; Volkov, O. M.; Rößler, U. K.; van den Brink, J.; Makarov, D.; Gaididei, Y.

Abstract

Typically, the chiral magnetic Skyrmion is a single-state excitation. Here we propose a system, where multiplet of Skyrmion states appears and one of these states can be the ground one. We show that the presence of a localized curvilinear defect drastically changes the magnetic properties of a thin perpendicularly magnetized ferromagnetic film. For a large enough defect amplitude a discrete set of equilibrium magnetization states appears forming a ladder of energy levels. Each equilibrium state has either a zero or a unit topological charge; i.e., topologically trivial and Skyrmion multiplets generally appear. Transitions between the levels with the same topological charge are allowed and can be utilized to encode and switch a bit of information. There is a wide range of geometrical and material parameters, where the Skyrmion level has the lowest energy. Thus, periodically arranged curvilinear defects can result in a Skyrmion lattice as the ground state.

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Permalink: https://www.hzdr.de/publications/Publ-27139