The magnetic decay time of a synthetic antiferromagnet comprised of two closely spaced magnetic dipoles is measured in the presence of microwave excitation. The system is known to be highly stable with respect to switching between its two antiparallel ground states under quasistatic magnetic fields. We show that an order of magnitude lower field can switch the pair, provided the field is applied in resonance with the optical eigenmode of the collective spin dynamics in the system. We furthermore show that thermal agitation can play an essential role in spin-flop switching for resonant excitations of near-or subcritical amplitude.

We investigate nanopillars in which two thin ferromagnetic particles are separated by a nanometer thin nonmagnetic spacer and can be set into stable spin vortex-pair configurations. We find that the previously unexplored limit of strong vortex core-core coupling can dominate the spin dynamics in the system. We observe experimentally and explain analytically and numerically how the 0.2 GHz gyrational resonance modes of the individual vortices are transformed into a 2 GHz collective rotational resonance mode in the configurations where the two cores form a bound pair.

We study spin dynamics in synthetic ferrimagnets, in which two dipole-coupled magnetic nanoparticles are different in thickness or biased asymmetrically with an external field. We observe a splitting of the optical spin-resonance for the two antiparallel ground states of the system and demonstrate how this splitting can be used to deterministically select a particular ground state. The demonstrated resonant switching is a fast and low-field way of controlling the magnetic state of nanodevices currently used in such large scale applications as magnetic random access memory.

Geometric or magnetic asymmetries in synthetic antiferromagnetic particles give rise to ferrimagnetic-like magnetization behavior, both quasi-static and dynamic. Such asymmetries in synthetic ferrimagnets can originate from a thickness imbalance or a fringing field from the reference layer in a nanopillar stack. In this paper, we theoretically describe the effects of the corresponding magnetic asymmetry contribution on the structure's static and spin-dynamic behavior. The developed model is then used to experimentally determine the asymmetry parameters of typical nanoscale spin-flop junctions, as well as successfully describe their microwave resonant properties, such as the frequency splitting and the field dependence of the optical spin-resonance spectra.

We investigate the dynamics of spin vortex pairs in magnetic multilayer particles, with the vortices closely spaced vertically and therefore with strong core-core coupling. We focus on the spin-dynamic behavior of the system beyond the linear small-signal regime, and on the state with antiparallel vortex chiralities and parallel cores, in which the vortex cores are strongly dipole coupled. The data show a clear transition from the dominant single rotational resonance at 2-3 GHz for small excitation field amplitudes to a dominant gyrational resonance at high excitation fields. The concomitant changes in the microwave spectra, seen as satellite resonances near the rotational peak as well as a pronounced low-frequency resonance, are interpreted as arising from the nonlinearities of the main rotational mode, which also mediate microwave power transfer from the high- to the low-frequency mode.

Stacked spin-vortex pairs in magnetic multilayered nanopillars, with vertical separation between the vortices small compared to the vortex core size and pure magnetostatic coupling, exhibit spin dynamics absent in individual vortices. This dynamics is nonlinear and is due to the strong direct core-core coupling in the system, dominating energetically for small-signal excitation. We observe and explain the appearance of spin resonance modes, forbidden within linear dynamics, and discuss how they depend on the magnetic and morphological asymmetries in the samples.

Applications of magnetic memory devices greatly benefit from ultra-fast, low-power switching. Here we propose how this can be achieved efficiently in a nano-sized synthetic antiferromagnet by using perpendicular-to-the-plane picosecond-range magnetic field pulses. Our detailed micromagnetic simulations, supported by analytical results, yield the parameter space where inertial switching and relaxation-free switching can be achieved in the system. We furthermore discuss the advantages of dynamic switching in synthetic antiferromagnets and, specifically, their relatively low-power switching as compared to that in single ferromagnetic particles. Finally, we show how excitation of spin-waves in the system can be used to significantly reduce the post-switching spin oscillations for practical device geometries.