Spin waves and their quanta, magnons, are the wave-like excitations of a magnetically ordered medium. The technological prospect of utilizing them as low-loss information carriers has driven various research efforts in the field of magnonics. Spin waves arise further interest due to their inherently strong nonlinear behavior which results from their interaction with the surrounding magnetic texture. Hence, magnons are subject to a variety of nonlinear effects and allow for extensive studies of such phenomena. In this work, the propagating spin-waves in micro structured Co25Fe75 conduits have been investigated by means of micro focused Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy. Due to the low intrinsic damping of this metallic compound, spin-wave decay lengths in the order of 20 μm can be observed which have not been reported elsewhere for other ferromagnet thin film materials. Furthermore, nonlinear four-magnon scattering processes can be observed when increasing the spin-wave amplitudes applying a sufficiently strong microwave excitation. This phenomenon introduces additional losses for propagating waves as it diverts energy into the parametric generation of secondary states. It is shown that the reduction of the spin-wave decay lengths reaches up to 50 %. In the second part, a novel approach for the utilization of four-magnon scattering is presented. It is shown that an additional driving signal at a secondary driving frequency can steer the nonlinear process in such a way, that a set of secondary parametric states with a well-defined frequency spacing is populated. This process is referred to as stimulated four-magnon scattering, as it enhances specific nonlinear scattering events. As a result, frequency combs with multiple equidistant modes are observed, which exhibit frequency spacings of 400 MHz up to 2 GHz. These complex spin-wave spectra can actively be tuned in various ways using external parameters such as the driving signals. These results advance the understanding of nonlinear spin waves in general and expands the range of possible technological applications of magnons.:List of Figures List of Tables List of Abbreviations and Acronyms List of Symbols 1 Introduction 2 Theoretical background 2.1 Interactions in microstructured thin film ferromagnets 2.1.1 Exchange interaction 2.1.2 Dipolar interaction and demagnetizing fields 2.2 Magnetization dynamics in ferromagnetic thin films 2.2.1 The Landau-Lifshitz and Gilbert equation 2.2.2 Spin waves 2.3 Nonlinear phenomena 2.3.1 Four-magnon scattering 3 Materials and Methods 3.1 Materials and sample fabrication 3.1.1 The low damping alloy Co25Fe75 3.1.2 Patterning: electron beam and optical lithography 3.1.3 Microwave antenna structures 3.2 Brillouin light scattering 3.2.1 Magnon-photon interaction 3.2.2 The Tandem Fabry Pérot interferometer 3.2.3 BLS microscopy (μBLS) 3.2.4 Phase-resolved BLS (PR-μBLS) 3.2.5 Temporal resolution (TR-μBLS) 3.3 Micromagnetic simulations in MuMax3 3.3.1 Mesh and material parameters 3.3.2 Simulation of magnetization dynamics 4 Results 4.1 Magnon transport in Co25Fe75 micro-conduits 4.1.1 Low external fields and magnetic groundstate 4.1.2 Magnon transport at low driving powers 4.1.3 Impact of nonlinear four-magnon scattering on magnon transport 4.2 Magnon frequency combs 4.2.1 Introduction on stimulated four-magnon scattering 4.2.2 Experimental realization 4.2.3 Amplitude-dependent observations 4.2.4 Tunability of spin-wave frequency combs 4.2.5 Variations of the excitation geometry 5 Summary and outlook Own publications Bibliography 109 Acknowledgement A Appendix A.1 Fabrication of Co25Fe75 microstructures A.2 Atomic Force Microscopy measurement on a 5 μm wide conduit A.3 BLS measurement of spin-wave decay lengths in a 5 μm wide conduit A.4 Calculations: Temporal profile of stimulated four-magnon scattering A.5 Power dependent frequency comb formation measured at positions II & III A.6 Averaged frequency comb mode numbers at reversed magnetic field polarity

Generating, miniaturizing and controlling spin waves on the nanometer scale is of great interest for magnonics. For instance, this holds the prospect of exploring wave-based logic concepts and reduced Joule heating, by avoiding charge transport, in spin-wave circuitry. In this work, a novel approach is for the first time confirmed experimentally, which allows confining spin-wave transport to nanometre-wide channels defined by magnetic domain walls. This is investigated for different domain wall types( 90deg and180deg Néel walls) in two material systems of polycrystalline Ni81Fe19 and epitaxial Fe. The study covers the thermal, linear and non-linear regime utilizing micro- focused Brillouin light scattering microscopy complemented by micromagnetic simulations. An initially linear dispersion dominated by dipolar interactions is found for the guided spin waves. These are transversally confined to sub-wavelength wide beams with a well-defined wave vector along the domain wall channel. In the non-linear regime, higher harmonic generation of additional spin-wave beams at the sides of the domain wall channel is observed. Furthermore, the possibility to shift the position of the domain wall over several microns by small magnetic fields is demonstrated, while maintaining its spin-wave channeling functionality. Additionally, spin-wave transmittance along domain walls, which change direction at the edges of the structure as well as between interconnected walls of identical and different type is studied. Characterization of spin-wave transmission through interconnected domain walls is an important step towards the development of magnonic circuitry based on domain wall(-networks). With respect to developing flexible and scalable spin-wave sources, the second part of this thesis addresses auto-oscillations in spin Hall oscillators (based on a Pt / Ni81Fe19 bilayer) of tapered nanowire geometry. In these systems, a simultaneous formation of two separate spin-wave bullets of distinct localization and frequency has been indicated. This spin-wave bullet formation is con- firmed experimentally and investigated for different driving currents. Subsequently, control over these bullets by injecting external microwave signals of varying frequency and power is demon- strated, switching the oscillator into single-mode operation. Three synchronized auto-oscillatory states are observed, which can be selected by the frequency of the externally imprinted signal. This synchronization results in linewidth reduction and frequency-locking of the individual bullet modes. Simultaneously the bullet-amplitude is amplified and is found to scale as P2/3 with the injected microwave power P. This amplification and control over position and frequency of the spin-wave bullets is promising for the development of microwave amplifiers/detectors and spin- wave sources on the nanoscale based on spin Hall oscillators.:1 Introduction 1 2 Theoretical background 4 2.1 Energy density of thin film ferromagnets and domain(wall) formation 2.2 Magnetizationdynamicsinthinfilmferromagnets 11 2.2.1 Spin-wavedispersioninthelinearregime 13 2.2.2 Magnetizationdynamicsinthenon-linearregime 17 2.3 SpinHallOscillators 21 2.3.1 Spin Hall effect and spin transfer torque in a ferromagnet/heavy-metal bi- layersystem 21 2.3.2 Characteristics of magnetization auto-oscillations 25 2.3.3 Improvement of monochromaticity, coherence and output power by injec- tionlocking 28 3 Materials and Methods 31 3.1 ElectronBeamLithography,EBL 31 3.2 Ni81Fe19 microstructures 32 3.3 Femicrostructures 34 3.4 TaperedspinHalloscillators 35 3.5 Micro-focused Brillouin Light Scattering Spectroscopy, μBLS 36 3.5.1 μBLSspatialresolution 40 4 Experimental results 43 4.1 Spin-wave dynamics in multi-domain magnetic configurations 43 4.1.1 Spin-wave dynamics of 180◦ Néel walls in rectangular elements 44 4.1.2 Spin-wave dynamics of 90◦ Néel walls in square elements 63 4.1.3 Spin-wave dynamics of interconnected Néel walls in Fe wires 76 4.2 Auto-oscillationintaperedwiregeometries 88 4.2.1 Initial static magnetic configuration and effective field 89 4.2.2 Thermally excited dynamics and spectral properties 91 4.2.3 Direct microwave excitation of spin-wave dynamics 93 4.2.4 Auto-oscillatoryresponse 96 4.2.5 Microwaveamplificationandinjectionlocking 104 5 Summary and outlook 114 Own publications 118 Bibliography 120 Acknowledgement 141 A Appendix 143 A.1 Splitting process in magnetic domains confined by domain walls 143 A.2 reconfigurable remanent states in square structures stabilized by local ion irradiation 144 A.3 Domain wall displacements induced by a scanning laser beam 145 A.4 Magnetic Force Microscopy investigation of the domain wall type and width 147 A.5 Micromagnetic simulations: problem definition and analysis 149 A.6 Current dependence of auto-oscillations in the tapered SHO 152 A.7 Fabrication of Ni81Fe19 microstructures for spin waves in domain walls 153