Inverse-design magnonic devices

The field of magnonics offers a new type of low-power information processing, in which magnons, the quanta of spin waves, carry and process data instead of electrons. Many magnonic devices were demonstrated recently, but the development of each of them requires specialized investigations and, usually, one device design is suitable for one function only. Here, we introduce the method of inverse-design magnonics, in which any functionality can be specified first, and a feedback-based computational algorithm is used to obtain the device design. We validate this method using the means of micromagnetic simulations. Our proof-of-concept prototype is based on a rectangular ferromagnetic area that can be patterned using square-shaped voids. To demonstrate the universality of this approach, we explore linear, nonlinear and nonreciprocal magnonic functionalities and use the same algorithm to create a magnonic (de-)multiplexer, a nonlinear switch and a circulator. Thus, inverse-design magnonics can be used to develop highly efficient rf applications as well as Boolean and neuromorphic computing building blocks. Inverse design is a recent development in photonics, where by locally controlling the refractive index in a matrix, nearly any information processing functionality can be achieved. Here, Wang et al. present a scheme for inverse design for spin-waves, magnons, which have a variety of unique advantages, such as short wavelength, and large non-linearity.