Chiral Excitation of Exchange Spin Waves Using Gold Nanowire Grating

Abstract

We propose an experimental method for the unidirectional excitation of spin waves. By structuring Au nanowire arrays within a coplanar waveguide onto a thin yttrium iron garnet (YIG) film, we observe a chiral coupling between the excitation field geometry of the nanowire grating and several well-resolved propagating magnon modes. We report a propagating spin wave spectroscopy study with unprecedented spectral definition, wavelengths down to 130 nm and attenuation lengths well above 100 μm over the 20 GHz frequency band. The proposed experiment paves the way for future non-reciprocal magnonic devices.