No Arabic abstract
We present an experimental study of spin-torque driven vortex self-oscillations in magnetic nanocontacts. We find that above a certain threshold in applied currents, the vortex gyration around the nanocontact is modulated by relaxation oscillations, which involve periodic reversals of the vortex core. This modulation leads to the appearance of commensurate but also more interestingly here, incommensurate states, which are characterized by devils staircases in the modulation frequency. We use frequency- and time-domain measurements together with advanced time-series analyses to provide experimental evidence of chaos in incommensurate states of vortex oscillations, in agreement with theoretical predictions.
We have conducted experiments to probe how the dynamics of nanocontact vortex oscillators can be modulated by an external signal. We explore the phase-locking properties in both the commensurate and chaotic regimes, where chaos appears to impede phase-locking while a more standard behavior is seen in the commensurate phase. These different regimes correspond to how the periodicity of the vortex core reversal relates to the frequency of core gyration around the nanocontact; a commensurate phase appears when the reversal rate is an integer fraction of the gyration frequency, while a chaotic state appears when this ratio is irrational. External modulation where the power spectral density exhibits rich features, appears due to the modulation between the external source frequency, gyration frequency, and core reversal frequency. We explain these features with first- or second-order modulation between the three frequencies. Phase-locking is also visible between the external source frequency and internal vortex modes (gyration and core reversal modes).
We study the agility of current-tunable oscillators based on a magnetic vortex orbiting around a point contact in spin-valves. Theory predicts frequency-tuning by currents occurs at constant orbital radius, so an exceptional agility is anticipated. To test this, we have inserted an oscillator in a microwave interferometer to apply abrupt current variations while time resolving its emission. Using frequency shift keying, we show that the oscillator can switch between two stabilized frequencies differing by 25% in less than ten periods. With a wide frequency tunability and a good agility, such oscillators possess desirable figures of merit for modulation-based rf applications.
Harnessing chaos or intrinsic nonlinear behaviours from dynamical systems is a promising avenue for the development of unconventional information processing technologies. However, the exploitation of such features in spintronic devices has not been attempted despite the many theoretical and experimental evidence of nonlinear behaviour of the magnetization dynamics in nanomagnetic systems. Here, we propose a first step in that direction by unveiling and characterizing the patterns and symbolic dynamics originating from the nonlinear chaotic time-resolved electrical signals generated experimentally by a nanocontact vortex oscillator (NCVO). We use advanced filtering methods to dissociate nonlinear deterministic patterns from thermal fluctuations and show that the emergence of chaos results in the unpredictable alternation of simple oscillatory patterns controlled by the NCVOs core-polarity switching. With phase-space reconstruction techniques, we perform a symbolic analysis of the time series to assess the level of complexity and entropy generated in the chaotic regime. We find that at the centre of its incommensurate region, it can exhibit maximal entropy and complexity. This suggests that NCVOs are promising nonlinear nanoscale source of entropy that could be harnessed for information processing.
We present an experimental study of vortex dynamics in magnetic nanocontacts based on pseudo spin valves comprising the Co$_2$MnGe Heusler compound. The films were grown by molecular beam epitaxy, where precise stoichiometry control and tailored stacking order allowed us to define the bottom ferromagnetic layer as the reference layer, with minimal coupling between the free and reference layers. 20-nm diameter nanocontacts were fabricated using a nano-indentation technique, leading to self-sustained gyration of the vortex generated by spin-transfer torques above a certain current threshold. By combining frequency- and time-domain measurements, we show that different types of spin-transfer induced dynamics related to different modes associated to the magnetic vortex configuration can be observed, such as mode hopping, mode coexistence and mode extinction appear in addition to the usual gyration mode.
Integrated power and linewidth of a propagating and a self-localized spin wave modes excited by spin-polarized current in an obliquely magnetized magnetic nanocontact are studied experimentally as functions of the angle $theta_e$ between the external bias magnetic field and the nanocontact plane. It is found that the power of the propagating mode monotonically increases with $theta_e$, while the power of the self-localized mode has a broad maximum near $theta_e = 40$ deg, and exponentially vanishes near the critical angle $theta_e = 58$ deg, at which the localized mode disappears. The linewidth of the propagating mode in the interval of angles $58<theta_e<90$ deg, where only this mode is excited, is adequtely described by the existing theory, while in the angular interval where both modes can exist the observed linewidth of both modes is substantially broadened due to the telegraph switching between the modes. Numetical simulations and an approximate analytical model give good semi-quantitative description of the observed results.