Professor Joseph Sklenar (Wayne State University)

Abstract:  Within antiferromagnetic materials and metamaterials, magnons, with frequencies spanning tens of GHz to THz frequencies exist at all wavenumbers. The availability of ultrafast magnons is largely responsible for the magnetism community’s recognition that antiferromagnets should play an active role in next generation electronics, magnetics, and opto-electronics. Some examples are antiferromagnetic based memories, spin-torque THz oscillators, and the usage of antiferromagnets as a building block for hybrid quantum systems.  In this presentation I will discuss our work on the synthesis of “synthetic antiferromagnets”, a metamaterial comprised of alternating magnetic and non-magnetic thin films that emulate naturally occurring antiferromagnets.  I will show how these materials are a promising platform for developing strategies to tune magnon-magnon interactions within antiferromagnets, thereby engineering the magnon energy spectrum of antiferromagnets.  These fundamental investigations help pave the way for antiferromagnets to be functionalized in next generation technologies.