Magnonics: Spin waves bridging Spintronics and Photonics

Emmy Noether research group of Dr. Helmut Schultheiß

• Research Topics
• Methods
• Publications
• Theses
• Members

Within this project we investigate the fundamental connections between spin waves, spin polarized electrons and photons, combining the three recently emerged research directions of magnonics, spintronics and photonics. This research is driven by the demand for new concepts, technologies and materials for information processing since, on one side, electronics is reaching its physical limit of speed due to waste heat generation and, on the other side, photonics lacks fast, electronic control on small length scales. Spin waves, being the fundamental dynamic excitations of ferromagnets with frequencies in the gigahertz to terahertz regime, offer the unique opportunity to merge the best aspects of spintronics and photonics opening new pathways for information processing. You can find a more detailed overview of our current research topics here.

Our methods cover for example time- and phase-resolved Brillouin light scattering microscopy (TR-µBLS), time-resolved magneto-optical Kerr microscopy (TR-µMOKE), a femtosecond-laser system, electrical detection via the (inverse) spin Hall effect (ISHE) as well as micromagnetic simulation.

Recent publications

See a full list here.

• K. Schultheiss, R. Verba, F. Wehrmann, K. Wagner, L. Körber, T. Hula, T. Hache, A. Kakay, A.A. Awad, V. Tiberkevich, A.N. Slavin, J. Fassbender, H. Schultheiss
  "Excitation of whispering gallery magnons in a magnetic vortex"
  (submitted, preprint available at arXiv:1806.03910)
• L. Körber, K. Wagner, A. Kákay, H. Schultheiss
  "Spin-wave reciprocity in the presence of Néel walls"
  IEEE Magnetic Letters PP, 99 (2017), DOI: 10.1109/LMAG.2017.2762642
• K. Wagner, A. Kákay, K. Schultheiss, A. Henschke, T. Sebastian, and H. Schultheiss
  "Magnetic domain walls as reconfigurable spin-wave nanochannels"
  Nature Nanotechnology 11, 432 (2016), DOI: 10.1038/NNANO.2015.339

Joining our group

If you are interested in joining our group (i.e. for a Bachelor, Master or PhD Thesis, as a research assistant or postdoc) see our open positions section for possible topics or directly contact Dr. Helmut Schultheiß. Exemplary topics are:

Interaction of spin waves and spin polarized currents

Using the spin degree of electrons and coherent transport of spin information is one of the grand challenges of condensed matter physics. Spin wave, which are also called magnons, are the fundamental exciation quanta of a ferromagnet and can interact with spin polarized currents. This interaction can be studied on a nanometer lengthscale using magneto-optical techniques such as Kerr-effect and Brillouin light scattering microscopy as well as electrical measurements based on the (inverse) spin Hall effect.

Magneto-Plasmonik

Plasmons are electromagnetic waves propagating along metal-dielectric interfaces. Plasmons as well as magnons are not only interesting from a physicists point of view but are also promising candidates for future information processing technologies superseeding conventional CMOS devices. During a master or bachelor thesis the candidate will invesigate the interaction between magnons and plasmons in metallic/ferromagnetic hybrid devices.