Researchers succeed in controlling extremely short-wavelength spin waves

In recent years, electronic data processing has been evolving in one direction only: The industry has downsized its components to the nanometer range. But this process is now reaching its physical limits. Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) are therefore exploring spin waves, or so-called magnons—a promising alternative for transporting information in more compact microchips. Cooperating with international partners, they have successfully generated and controlled extremely short-wavelength spin waves. The physicists achieved this feat by harnessing a natural magnetic phenomenon, as they explain in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.