Current control of spin-wave transport in YIG via the smallVO2 insulator-to-metal transition
Abstract
Electrically reconfigurable spin-wave transport is central to realizing energy-efficient magnonic information technologies, yet existing current-driven approaches require current densities that undermine the fundamental dissipation advantage of spin-wave-based signal processing. Here, we demonstrate low-power electrical control of spin-wave propagation in a hybrid magnonic device comprising a low-damping yttrium iron garnet (YIG) film coupled to an adjacent vanadium dioxide (smallVO2) stripe. Passing a small current through smallVO2 triggers its insulator-to-metal transition (IMT), producing a sharp, reversible resistivity reduction exceeding three orders of magnitude. This abrupt phase transition locally modifies the spin-wave dispersion in YIG, reducing the group velocity and suppressing transmission by up to 40 dB near the ferromagnetic resonance frequency. Pulsed current excitation enables reconfiguration of spin-wave transport on a 10 ms timescale. Temperature-dependent measurements, corroborated by thermal modeling, decouple the respective contributions of current-induced heating of YIG and the IMT in smallVO2, establishing the latter as the dominant control mechanism. Our results demonstrate that electrically induced phase transitions in correlated oxides constitute an energy-efficient strategy for dynamic spin-wave manipulation, providing a scalable route toward reconfigurable magnonic devices.
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BibTeX
@misc{nikitin2026current,
title = {{Current control of spin-wave transport in YIG via the $\small\mathbfVO_\mathbf2$ insulator-to-metal transition}},
author = {Aleksei A. Nikitin and Nikolai Kuznetsov and Lukáš Flajšman and Erkki Lähderanta and Sebastiaan van Dijken},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2611.04951},
eprint = {2611.04951},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.04951},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Current control of spin-wave transport in YIG via the smallVO_2 insulator-to-metal transition
AU - Aleksei A. Nikitin
AU - Nikolai Kuznetsov
AU - Lukáš Flajšman
AU - Erkki Lähderanta
AU - Sebastiaan van Dijken
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/03
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2611.04951
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.04951
AB - Electrically reconfigurable spin-wave transport is central to realizing energy-efficient magnonic information technologies, yet existing current-driven approaches require current densities that undermine the fundamental dissipation advantage of spin-wave-based signal processing. Here, we demonstrate low-power electrical control of spin-wave propagation in a hybrid magnonic device comprising a low-damping yttrium iron garnet (YIG) film coupled to an adjacent vanadium dioxide (smallVO_2) stripe. Passing a small current through smallVO_2 triggers its insulator-to-metal transition (IMT), producing a sharp, reversible resistivity reduction exceeding three orders of magnitude. This abrupt phase transition locally modifies the spin-wave dispersion in YIG, reducing the group velocity and suppressing transmission by up to 40 dB near the ferromagnetic resonance frequency. Pulsed current excitation enables reconfiguration of spin-wave transport on a 10 ms timescale. Temperature-dependent measurements, corroborated by thermal modeling, decouple the respective contributions of current-induced heating of YIG and the IMT in smallVO_2, establishing the latter as the dominant control mechanism. Our results demonstrate that electrically induced phase transitions in correlated oxides constitute an energy-efficient strategy for dynamic spin-wave manipulation, providing a scalable route toward reconfigurable magnonic devices.
ER -