Domain-wall induced phase shifts in spin waves

Abstract

We study the interaction between two important features of ferromagnetic nanoparticles: magnetic domain walls and spin waves. Micromagnetic simulations reveal that magnetostatic spin waves change their phase as they pass through domain walls. Similar to an Aharonov-Bohm experiment, we suggest to probe this effect by splitting the waves on different branches of a ring. The interference of merging waves depends on the domain walls in the branches. A controlled manipulation of spin-wave phases could be the first step towards nanoscaled ferromagnetic devices performing logical operations based on spin-wave propagation.