Spin Transport in a Magnetic Insulator with Zero Effective Damping

Phys Rev Lett. 2019 Dec 20;123(25):257201. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.257201.

Abstract

Applications based on spin currents strongly rely on the control and reduction of their effective damping and their transport properties. We here experimentally observe magnon mediated transport of spin (angular) momentum through a 13.4-nm thin yttrium iron garnet film with full control of the magnetic damping via spin-orbit torque. Above a critical spin-orbit torque, the fully compensated damping manifests itself as an increase of magnon conductivity by almost 2 orders of magnitude. We compare our results to theoretical expectations based on recently predicted current induced magnon condensates and discuss other possible origins of the observed critical behavior.