- Letter
Nonlinear spin-wave Doppler effect for flexible tuning of magnonic frequencies
Phys. Rev. B 113, L180411 – Published 20 May, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/54pn-9qss
Abstract
We theoretically propose a nonlinear spin-wave Doppler effect, in which the time-dependent motion of a magnetic energy boundary acts as an active frequency modulator, directly converting boundary-induced phase dynamics into instantaneous spectral synthesis for propagating spin-wave modes. In contrast to the conventional linear Doppler effect governed by constant relative velocity, this mechanism enables dynamic phase-to-frequency transduction, generating high-order harmonics, magnonic frequency combs, and coherent chirped sidebands, without requiring nonlinear magnon-magnon coupling or multimagnon scattering. Micromagnetic simulations on voltage-controlled anisotropy boundaries in ferroelectric/ferromagnetic heterostructures demonstrate that the comb spacing and spectral topology are determined solely by boundary kinematics, confirming direct Doppler phase coupling between boundary motion and spin-wave propagation. These results establish moving magnetic-energy boundaries as a new class of on-chip spectral synthesizers and define a coherent and energy-efficient framework for flexible tuning of magnonic frequencies, fundamentally distinct from traditional passive scattering or nonlinear multimagnon mechanisms.