2015/06/30 by Praveen G. Gowtham, Takahiro Moriyama, Daniel C. Ralph +1 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.1063/1.4938390
published as J. Appl. Phys. 118, 233910 (2015) · 29 pages with 8 figures
arxiv created 2016/03/09 · arxiv updated 2016/03/10
Coherent gigahertz-frequency surface acoustic waves (SAWs) traveling on the surface of a piezoelectric crystal can, via the magnetoelastic interaction, resonantly excite traveling spin waves in an adjacent thin-film ferromagnet. These excited spin waves, traveling with a definite in-plane wave-vector q enforced by the SAW, can be detected by measuring changes in the electro-acoustical transmission of a SAW delay line. Here, we provide a first demonstration that such measurements constitute a precise and quantitative technique for spin-wave spectroscopy, providing a means to determine both isotropic and anisotropic contributions to the spin-wave dispersion and damping. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this spectroscopic technique by measuring the spin-wave properties of a Ni thin film for a large range of wave vectors,q = 2.5 x 104 - 8 x 104 cm^(-1), over which anisotropic dipolar interactions vary from being negligible to quite significant.