- Open Access
Cavity magnonics with domain walls in insulating ferromagnetic wires
Phys. Rev. Research 8, 013243 – Published 5 March, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/h876-wl85
Abstract
Magnetic domain walls (DWs) are topological defects that host robust low-energy modes, which can be harnessed for classical and neuromorphic computing. However, accessing their quantum dynamics has remained an outstanding challenge. Using concepts from cavity optomechanics, we show that a geometric, Coriolis-type interaction between localized DWs and extended magnon modes in short insulating ferromagnetic wires enables efficient cooling of DWs to their quantum ground state and the preparation of nonclassical states with negative Wigner functions, detectable in the power spectrum of emitted magnons. We further demonstrate that magnons can mediate long-range entangling interactions between qubits encoded in spatially separated DWs, providing a route toward universal quantum gate operations. Our proposal relies solely on intrinsic degrees of freedom of the ferromagnet and naturally extends to ferrimagnets and antiferromagnets, as well as to other confined magnetic textures such as vortices and skyrmions in insulating nanostructures.
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Article Text
Supplemental Material
References (40)
- J. Zang, V. Cros, and A. Hoffmann, Topology in Magnetism, Springer Series in Solid-State Sciences (Springer International Publishing, Cham, Switzerland, 2018), Vol. 192 .
- G. S. D. Beach, C. Nistor, C. Knutson, M. Tsoi, and J. L. Erskine, Dynamics of field-driven domain-wall propagation in ferromagnetic nanowires, Nat. Mater. 4, 741 (2005).
- M. Hayashi, L. Thomas, R. Moriya, C. T. Rettner, and S. S. P. Parkin, Current-controlled magnetic domain-wall nanowire shift register, Science 320, 209 (2008).
- S. S. P. Parkin, M. Hayashi, and L. Thomas, Magnetic domain-wall racetrack memory, Science 320, 190 (2008).
- J. Grollier, D. Querlioz, K. Y. Camsari, K. Everschor-Sitte, S. Fukami, and M. D. Stiles, Neuromorphic spintronics, Nat. Electron. 3, 360 (2020).
- D. Kumar, T. Jin, R. Sbiaa, M. Kläui, S. Bedanta, S. Fukami, D. Ravelosona, S.-H. Yang, X. Liu, and S. Piramanayagam, Domain wall memory: Physics, materials, and devices, Phys. Rep. 958, 1 (2022).
- S. Takei, Y. Tserkovnyak, and M. Mohseni, Spin superfluid Josephson quantum devices, Phys. Rev. B 95, 144402 (2017).
- S. Takei and M. Mohseni, Quantum control of topological defects in magnetic systems, Phys. Rev. B 97, 064401 (2018).
- I. Proskurin, A. S. Ovchinnikov, J.-i. Kishine, and R. L. Stamps, Cavity optomechanics of topological spin textures in magnetic insulators, Phys. Rev. B 98, 220411 (2018).
- C. Psaroudaki and C. Panagopoulos, Skyrmion qubits: A new class of quantum logic elements based on nanoscale magnetization, Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 067201 (2021).
- P. Siegl, E. Y. Vedmedenko, M. Stier, M. Thorwart, and T. Posske, Controlled creation of quantum skyrmions, Phys. Rev. Res. 4, 023111 (2022).
- J. Zou, S. Bosco, B. Pal, S. S. P. Parkin, J. Klinovaja, and D. Loss, Quantum computing on magnetic racetracks with flying domain wall qubits, Phys. Rev. Res. 5, 033166 (2023).
- G. Tatara, H. Kohno, and J. Shibata, Microscopic approach to current-driven domain wall dynamics, Phys. Rep. 468, 213 (2008).
- M. Aspelmeyer, T. J. Kippenberg, and F. Marquardt, Cavity optomechanics, Rev. Mod. Phys. 86, 1391 (2014).
- S. Sharma, Y. M. Blanter, and G. E. W. Bauer, Optical cooling of magnons, Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 087205 (2018).
- J. Graf, H. Pfeifer, F. Marquardt, and S. V. Kusminskiy, Cavity optomagnonics with magnetic textures: Coupling a magnetic vortex to light, Phys. Rev. B 98, 241406 (2018).
- M. J. Martínez-Pérez and D. Zueco, Strong coupling of a single photon to a magnetic vortex, ACS Photon. 6, 360 (2019).
- M. J. Martínez-Pérez and D. Zueco, Quantum electrodynamics with magnetic textures, New J. Phys. 21, 115002 (2019).
- J. O. Iyaro, I. Proskurin, and R. L. Stamps, Collective dynamics of domain walls: An antiferromagnetic spin texture in an optical cavity, Phys. Rev. B 104, 184416 (2021).
- See Supplemental Material at http://link.aps.org/supplemental/10.1103/h876-wl85 for details on the derivation of the DW Hamiltonian, the interaction with the magnons, and the evolution of the combined system under microwave drivings, which includes Refs. [39, 40].
- H. P. Breuer and F. Petruccione, The Theory of Open Quantum Systems (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002).
- S. K. Kim, O. Tchernyshyov, V. Galitski, and Y. Tserkovnyak, Magnon-induced non-Markovian friction of a domain wall in a ferromagnet, Phys. Rev. B 97, 174433 (2018).
- This result is strictly valid only for magnons with wave vectors satisfying ; for magnons with , this simple picture remains qualitatively correct, but it is affected slightly by interference effects, as demonstrated in Ref. [20].
- The presence of a magnetic field and easy-axis anisotropy causes extra DW-magnon interactions of Hamiltonian origin, but they scale as [20], and hence are subleading as compared to the Coriolis-type contribution.
- A. A. Kovalev and Y. Tserkovnyak, Thermomagnonic spin transfer and Peltier effects in insulating magnets, Europhys. Lett. 97, 67002 (2012).
- K. A. van Hoogdalem, Y. Tserkovnyak, and D. Loss, Magnetic texture-induced thermal Hall effects, Phys. Rev. B 87, 024402 (2013).
- N. Nagaosa, Emergent electromagnetism in condensed matter, Proc. Jpn. Acad. Ser. B 95, 278 (2019).
- The long-wavelength magnons are practically unaffected by the pinning potential because their amplitude is negligible at the position of the scatterer (see also Ref. [20]).
- I. Wilson-Rae, N. Nooshi, J. Dobrindt, T. J. Kippenberg, and W. Zwerger, Cavity-assisted backaction cooling of mechanical resonators, New J. Phys. 10, 095007 (2008).
- S. Rips, M. Kiffner, I. Wilson-Rae, and M. J. Hartmann, Steady-state negative Wigner functions of nonlinear nanomechanical oscillators, New J. Phys. 14, 023042 (2012).
- S. Haroche and J. M. Raimond, Exploring the Quantum: Atoms, Cavities, and Photons (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006).
- A. A. Clerk, M. H. Devoret, S. M. Girvin, F. Marquardt, and R. J. Schoelkopf, Introduction to quantum noise, measurement, and amplification, Rev. Mod. Phys. 82, 1155 (2010).
- S. Rips, I. Wilson-Rae, and M. J. Hartmann, Nonlinear nanomechanical resonators for quantum optoelectromechanics, Phys. Rev. A 89, 013854 (2014).
- S. Rips and M. J. Hartmann, Quantum information processing with nanomechanical qubits, Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 120503 (2013).
- A. Barenco, C. H. Bennett, R. Cleve, D. P. DiVincenzo, N. Margolus, P. Shor, T. Sleator, J. A. Smolin, and H. Weinfurter, Elementary gates for quantum computation, Phys. Rev. A 52, 3457 (1995).
- R. Schilling, Quantum theory of domain walls, Phys. Rev. B 15, 2700 (1977).
- H. Y. Yuan, M.-H. Yung, and X. R. Wang, Emergence of antiferromagnetic quantum domain walls, Phys. Rev. B 98, 060407 (2018).
- G. Qu, J. Zou, D. Loss, and T. Hirosawa, Density matrix renormalization group study of domain wall qubits, Phys. Rev. B 112, 054432 (2025).
- A. Altland and B. D. Simons, Condensed Matter Field Theory (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2010).
- C. W. Gardiner and P. Zoller, Quantum Noise, 2nd ed. (Springer, Berlin, Germany, 2000)