Nonlinear dynamics of strongly-bound magnetic vortex pairs

Sammanfattning: This work is a study of nonlinear phenomena in vertically stacked pairs of magnetic vortices. New dynamic regimes are uncovered with a decrease in the inter-vortex separation to below the lateral vortex-core size. These include linear, non-linear, and chaos dynamics of the coupled vortex cores, as well as core-core coupling/decoupling driven by resonant microwave fields. In addition to the direct advantages gained from the favorable symmetry of the system, which includes the fringing flux closure, new ways of exciting and controlling the motion of the vortex cores are shown. The dynamics of the vortex stack show promising improvements over those of a single vortex, in particular the characteristic speed of operation can be increased by an order of magnitude. The system therefore is viewed to have the potential for applications in data storage and oscillators.A combination of experimental, analytical, and numerical methods is used. A theoretical framework based on the quasiparticle Thiele-equation approach, extended to thermally driven dynamics by using the Monte Carlo method, is constructed and extensively tested experimentally and numerically. In-depth micromagnetic simulations are performed and show consistency with the results obtained analytically, both successfully validated against the measured data collected in a series of experiments on spin vortex pairs. Among these are microwave spectroscopy, transient dynamics, thermal decay, and pinning spectroscopy measurements.In particular, it is shown that the nonlinear frequency response of a two-vortex system exhibits a fold-over and an isolated rotational core-core resonance. A parametric inter-modal interaction is shown to induce hybrid dynamic regimes of the vortex-core oscillation when the system is subject to high excitation amplitudes.An intrinsic bi-stability of the core positions in the structure is found and investigated as a candidate for a memory element. The bi-stability is pronounced at lower temperatures. The rates of thermal switching were investigated in order to find the optimum operating DC-bias conditions.It is found that parametric interactions play a big role in the otherwise frustrated dynamics of essentially a 1D system. The parameters of the short excitation pulses for switching between the core-core states are optimized to achieve switching probabilities of over 90% in the experiment, with the pulses only a few nanoseconds long.Vortex pairs are demonstrated to be sensitive to the presence of defects in the ferromagnetic layers of the nanostructure. It is shown that the key factor in this sensitivity lies in the vortex' flux closure. Binding of a core-core pair to a defect is observed experimentally. A model is developed to describe the changes in the dynamical characteristics of the defect-pinned vortex pair. The capabilities of the model for characterizing magnetic and morphological defects in nanostructures are demonstrated.