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Abstract The opto-electronic oscillators (OEOs) hosting self-sustained oscillations by a time-delayed mechanism are of particular interest in long-haul signal transmission and processing. On the other hand, owing to their unique tunability and compatibility, magnons—as elementary excitations of spin waves—are advantageous carriers for coherent signal transduction across different platforms. In this work, we integrated an opto-electronic oscillator with a magnonic oscillator consisting of a microwave waveguide and a yttrium iron garnet sphere. We find that, in the presence of the magnetic sphere, the oscillator power spectrum exhibits sidebands flanking the fundamental OEO modes. The measured waveguide transmission reveals anti-crossing gaps, a hallmark of the coupling between the opto-electronic oscillator modes and the Walker modes of the sphere. Experimental results are well reproduced by a coupled-mode theory that accounts for nonlinear magnetostrictive interactions mediated by the magnetic sphere. Leveraging the advanced fiber-optic technologies in opto-electronics, this work lays out a new, hybrid platform for investigating long-distance coupling and nonlinearity in coherent magnonic phenomena. 

Abstract Magnonicsis a research field that has gained an increasing interest in both the fundamental and applied sciences in recent years. This field aims to explore and functionalize collective spin excitations in magnetically ordered materials for modern information technologies, sensing applications and advanced computational schemes. Spin waves, also known as magnons, carry spin angular momenta that allow for the transmission, storage and processing of information without moving charges. In integrated circuits, magnons enable on-chip data processing at ultrahigh frequencies without the Joule heating, which currently limits clock frequencies in conventional data processors to a few GHz. Recent developments in the field indicate that functional magnonic building blocks for in-memory computation, neural networks and Ising machines are within reach. At the same time, the miniaturization of magnonic circuits advances continuously as the synergy of materials science, electrical engineering and nanotechnology allows for novel on-chip excitation and detection schemes. Such circuits can already enable magnon wavelengths of 50 nm at microwave frequencies in a 5G frequency band. Research into non-charge-based technologies is urgently needed in view of the rapid growth of machine learning and artificial intelligence applications, which consume substantial energy when implemented on conventional data processing units. In its first part, the 2024 Magnonics Roadmap provides an update on the recent developments and achievements in the field of nano-magnonics while defining its future avenues and challenges. In its second part, the Roadmap addresses the rapidly growing research endeavors on hybrid structures and magnonics-enabled quantum engineering. We anticipate that these directions will continue to attract researchers to the field and, in addition to showcasing intriguing science, will enable unprecedented functionalities that enhance the efficiency of alternative information technologies and computational schemes. 

Abstract Hybrid magnonic systems are a newcomer for pursuing coherent information processing owing to their rich quantum engineering functionalities. One prototypical example is hybrid magnonics in antiferromagnets with an easy-plane anisotropy that resembles a quantum-mechanically mixed two-level spin system through the coupling of acoustic and optical magnons. Generally, the coupling between these orthogonal modes is forbidden due to their opposite parity. Here we show that the Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya-Interaction (DMI), a chiral antisymmetric interaction that occurs in magnetic systems with low symmetry, can lift this restriction. We report that layered hybrid perovskite antiferromagnets with an interlayer DMI can lead to a strong intrinsic magnon-magnon coupling strength up to 0.24 GHz, which is four times greater than the dissipation rates of the acoustic/optical modes. Our work shows that the DMI in these hybrid antiferromagnets holds promise for leveraging magnon-magnon coupling by harnessing symmetry breaking in a highly tunable, solution-processable layered magnetic platform. 

Nonreciprocal magnon propagation has recently become a highly potential approach of developing chip-embedded microwave isolators for advanced information processing. However, it is challenging to achieve large nonreciprocity in miniaturized magnetic thin-film devices because of the difficulty of distinguishing propagating surface spin waves along the opposite directions when the film thickness is small. In this work, we experimentally realize unidirectional microwave transduction with sub-micrometer-wavelength propagating magnons in a yttrium iron garnet (YIG) thin-film delay line. We achieve a non-decaying isolation of 30 dB with a broad field-tunable bandpass frequency range up to 14 GHz. The large isolation is due to the selection of chiral magnetostatic surface spin waves with the Oersted field generated from the coplanar waveguide antenna. Increasing the geometry ratio between the antenna width and YIG thickness drastically reduces the nonreciprocity and introduces additional magnon transmission bands. Our results pave the way for on-chip microwave isolation and tunable delay line with short-wavelength magnonic excitations.