Propagation and control of nano-scale, magnetic droplet solitons

Published

June 11, 2012

Author(s)

Thomas J. Silva, Mark Hoefer, Matteo Sommacal

Abstract

The propagation and controlled manipulation of strongly nonlinear, two-dimensional solitonic states in a thin, anisotropic ferromagnet is theoretically demonstrated. It has been recently proposed that spin polarized currents in a nanocontact device could be used to nucleate a stationary dissipative droplet soliton. Here, an external magnetic field is introduced to accelerate and control the propagation of the soliton in a damped medium. Soliton perturbation theory corroborated by two-dimensional micromagnetic simulations predicts several intriguing physical effects including the acceleration of a stationary soliton by a negative magnetic field gradient, the sustenance of a stationary droplet and the ability to control the soliton’s speed by use of a time varying, spatially uniform external field. Soliton propagation distances approach ten microns in low loss media suggesting that droplet solitons could be viable information carriers in future spintronic applications analogous to optical solitons in fiber optic communications.

Citation

Physical Review Letters

Volume

85

Issue

21

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.85.214433

Keywords

soliton, droplet, spin torque, nanocontact

Citation

Silva, T. , Hoefer, M. and Sommacal, M. (2012), Propagation and control of nano-scale, magnetic droplet solitons, Physical Review Letters, [online], https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.85.214433 (Accessed October 10, 2025)