Computational micromagnetics based on normal modes: Bridging the gap between macrospin and full spatial discretization

The Landau-Lifshitz equation governing magnetization dynamics is written in terms of the amplitudes of normal modes associated with the micromagnetic system's appropriate ground state. This results in a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations (ODEs), the right-hand side of which can be expressed as the sum of a linear term and nonlinear terms with increasing order of nonlinearity (quadratic, cubic, etc.). The application of the method to nanostructured magnetic systems demonstrates that the accurate description of magnetization dynamics requires a limited number of normal modes, which results in a considerable improvement in computational speed. The proposed method can be used to obtain a reduced-order dynamical description of magnetic nanostructures which allows to adjust the accuracy between low-dimensional models, such as macrospin, and micromagnetic models with full spatial discretization. This new paradigm for micromagnetic simulations is tested for three problems relevant to the areas of spintronics and magnonics: directional spin-wave coupling in magnonic waveguides, high power ferromagnetic resonance in a magnetic nanodot, and injection-locking in spin-torque nano-oscillators. The case studies considered demonstrate the validity of the proposed approach to systematically obtain an intermediate order dynamical model based on normal modes for the analysis of magnetic nanosystems. The time-consuming calculation of the normal modes has to be done only one time for the system. These modes can be used to optimize and predict the system response for all possible time-varying external excitations (magnetic fields, spin currents). This is of utmost importance for applications where fast and accurate system simulations are required, such as in electronic circuits including magnetic devices.