Nonlinear suppression of dispersion broadening of ultrashort spin-wave pulses in thin YIG films

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that nonlinear effects in thin YIG films can suppress dispersion broadening of ultrashort spin-wave pulses, enabling stable transmission of information over micrometer distances.

Contribution

It experimentally shows that nonlinearity can counteract dispersion in spin waves, leading to envelope soliton formation in microscopic YIG systems at low microwave powers.

Findings

Nonlinear spin-wave propagation can form envelope solitons.

Microwave powers of about one milliwatt suffice for soliton formation.

3-ns pulses can be transmitted over 50 micrometers without broadening.

Abstract

We study experimentally the nonlinear propagation of short pulses of forward volume spin waves in nanometer-thick YIG films. We show that nonlinearity of the spin system can efficiently counteract dispersion broadening of the pulses, leading to the formation of envelope solitons. We demonstrate that in microscopic YIG systems, microwave powers of the order of one milliwatt are sufficient to reach the soliton formation threshold. At powers slightly above this threshold, we achieve transmission of 3-ns spin-wave pulses over distances of up to 50 micrometers without increase in their temporal width. Our results demonstrate a promising way towards high-rate transmission of information in microscopic spin-wave circuits unaffected by detrimental dispersion effects.