Ultrafast Magnonics

The Swedish Research Council reached a decision on November 7, 2022 on project grants and starting grants within Natural and Engineering Sciences. The Department of Physics and Astronomy is granted 27 430 000 SEK for the period 2023-2026 for in total six project grants and one starting grant. The projects will begin during 2023.

Read more about the Swedish Research Council's grants within Natural and Engineering Sciences 2022

Project title: Ultrafast Magnonics
Main applicant: Hermann Dürr, FREIA
Grant amount: SEK 4 400 000 for the period 2023-2026

Magnons are the fundamental excitations of magnetic solids. In technology they can be used for the energy-efficient transport of information and promise to replace electrical currents conventionally used in spintronics. So far magnonics, the computing with magnons, has mainly focused on long-wavelength, low frequency excitations as they are commonly easier to generate and detect. The present project aims at moving magnonics to small-wavevector magnons with terahertz frequencies promising much higher propagation speeds and smaller device dimensions. Generation and detection will be done using the latest advances in x-ray free electron lasers. The project brings together experimentalist and theorists to provide a fundamental understanding how short-wavelength magnons can be generated using light in ferro- and antiferromagnetic materials, how materials properties can be optimized to achieve low magnon damping and finally how magnon spin currents interact with magnetic imperfections, domain walls and spin textures, that will ultimately facilitate detection in future devices.