Magnonics

Magnonics, as an emergent interdisciplinary field, covers at least four disciplines: condensed matter physics, optics, spintronics, and microelectronics, where the quasiparticles of spin waves, i.e., magnons, serve as the information carrier. In recent years, magnonics has attracted much interest due to the rich fundamental physics, materials, devices, and the potential practical applications. Compared with electrons, there is no movement of charge during the transmission of magnons, avoiding the emergence of Ohmic losses. This is the key advantage of magnonic devices. Research objectives can be divided into two groups: incoherent and coherent spin waves. The former transmits angular momentum, while the latter transmits both angular momentum and phase information. There is also a growing area of research, magnon spintronics, that studies the conversion between magnon currents and electron spin currents.

This special issue aims to cover the recent developments of magnonics, from magnon-related materials, physics, and devices to potential circuit applications. The “charge current free” and wave properties provide magnons with some unique functions beyond microelectronics and spintronics, inspiring the next-generation ultralow-dissipation, strong-coherent, and high-speed all-magnonic information technology of the future.

Guest Editors: Will Branford, Xiufeng Han, and Shufeng Zhang