Snell's Law for Spin Waves

TL;DR

This paper experimentally demonstrates Snell's law for magneto-static spin waves in ferromagnetic films, revealing anisotropic refraction behavior and potential for spin wave control in magnonic devices.

Contribution

The study provides the first experimental observation of Snell's law for spin waves, highlighting anisotropic refraction effects due to dispersion relation in thin ferromagnetic films.

Findings

Snell's law applies to magneto-static spin waves in ferromagnetic films.

Deviations from isotropic Snell's law occur at large incidence angles.

Thickness steps influence wavelength and amplitude of spin waves.

Abstract

We report the experimental observation of Snell's law for magneto-static spin waves in thin ferromagnetic Permalloy films by imaging incident, refracted and reflected waves. We use a thickness step as the interface between two media with different dispersion relation. Since the dispersion relation for magneto-static waves in thin ferromagnetic films is anisotropic, deviations from the isotropic Snell's law known in optics are observed for incidence angles larger than 25\textdegree{} with respect to the interface normal between the two magnetic media. Furthermore, we can show that the thickness step modifies the wavelength and the amplitude of the incident waves. Our findings open up a new way of spin wave steering for magnonic applications.