Mode-sensitive magnetoelastic coupling in phononic-crystal magnomechanics

The acoustically driven spin-wave resonance in a phononic-crystal cavity is numerically investigated. The designed cavity enables confinement of gigahertz vibrations in a wavelength-scale point-defect structure and sustains a variety of resonance modes. Inhomogeneous strain distributions in the modes modify the magnetostrictive coupling and the spin-wave excitation susceptible to an external-field orientation. In particular, a monopole-like mode in the cavity having a near-symmetrical pattern shows a subwavelength-scale mode volume and can provide a versatile acoustic excitation scheme independent of the field-angle variation. Thus, the phononic-crystal platform offers an alternative approach to acoustically control the spin-wave dynamics with ultrasmall and inhomogeneous mode structures, which will be a key technology to integrate and operate large-scale magnomechanical circuits.