Nonreciprocity of surface acoustic waves coupled to spin waves in a ferromagnetic bilayer with noncollinear layer magnetizations

Nonreciprocity of propagation of surface acoustic waves (SAWs) in the microwave frequency band can be achieved using the magnetoelastic interaction of SAWs with spin waves (SWs) propagating in magnetic heterostructures. Recent works have shown that the ultimate isolation of a counterpropagating hybridized SAW/SW is achieved in heterostructures consisting of a synthetic antiferromagnet—a ferromagnetic (FM) bilayer with antiferromagnetic Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida interlayer coupling—placed on top of a piezoelectric acoustic waveguide. In this work, we study in detail a more practical and technologically simpler system based on an FM bilayer, where layers are coupled by only dipole-dipole interaction, and having noncollinear magnetizations of the FM layers. A weak in-plane anisotropy with noncollinear easy axes in the layers is shown to be the only essential factor for the realization of strongly nonreciprocal propagation of a hybridized SAW/SW. We formulate requirements for the relative orientation of the layer’s magnetizations and wave propagation direction necessary to realize an efficient SAW isolator, and demonstrate examples of SAW transmission characteristics which prove the possibility of achieving an isolation exceeding 50 dB for a submillimeter-long FM bilayer with insertion losses of just a few decibels more than those of a pure SAW device. In addition to relative fabrication simplicity, the proposed magnetoelastic heterostructure exhibits a reasonable robustness in respect to deviations in the anisotropy axes and/or bias field directions—an important benefit for device mass production. Published by the American Physical Society 2024