Controlling of nonlinear relaxation of quantized magnons in nano-devices

M. Mohseni, Q. Wang, B. Heinz, M. Kewenig, M. Schneider, F. Kohl, B. Lägel, C. Dubs, A. V. Chumak, P. Pirro

Published 2020-06-05Version 1

Relaxation of linear magnetization dynamics is well described by the viscous Gilbert damping processes. However, for strong excitations, nonlinear damping processes such as the decay via magnon-magnon interactions emerge and trigger additional relaxation channels. Here, we use space- and time-resolved micro-focused Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy and micromagnetic simulations to investigate the nonlinear relaxation of strongly driven spin-waves in yttrium iron garnet nano-conduits. We show that the nonlinear magnon relaxation in this highly quantized system possesses intermodal features, i.e. magnons scatter to higher-order quantized modes through a cascade of scattering events. We demonstrate that this type of scattering saturates on a time scale of approximately 4 ns, and meditates the decay rate of the resonantly driven magnons. We further show how to control such intermodal dissipation processes by quantization of the magnon band in single-mode devices, where this phenomenon approaches its fundamental limit.