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Nonlinear suppression of dispersion broadening of ultrashort spin-wave pulses in thin yttrium iron garnet films

K.O. Nikolaev1,*, D. Raskhodchikov2,*, J. Bensmann2,*, I.V. Borisenko1, E. Lomonte2, L. Jin2,3, R. Schmidt2, J. Kern2, S. Michaelis de Vasconcellos2 et al.

R. Bratschitsch2, S.O. Demokritov1, W.H.P. Pernice2,3, and V.E. Demidov1,†

  • *These authors contributed equally.
  • †Contact author: demidov@uni-muenster.de
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Phys. Rev. Applied 25, 034035 – Published 11 March, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/wt14-t3dj

Abstract

We study experimentally the nonlinear propagation of short pulses of forward volume spin waves in out-of-plane magnetized nanometer-thick yttrium iron garnet (YIG) films. We show that nonlinearity of the spin system can efficiently counteract dispersion broadening of the pulses, leading to the formation of envelope solitons. We demonstrate that in microscopic YIG systems, microwave powers of the order of 1 mW are sufficient to reach the soliton formation threshold. At powers slightly above this threshold, we achieve transmission of 3-ns spin-wave pulses over distances of up to 50 µm without increase in their temporal width. Our results demonstrate a promising way towards high-rate transmission of information in microscopic spin-wave circuits unaffected by detrimental dispersion effects.

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Phys. Rev. Applied 25, 034035– Published 11 March, 2026
  • Received 7 November 2025
  • Revised 21 January 2026
  • Accepted 17 February 2026
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