Dr. Lance Delong University of Kentucky

Ferromagnetic (FM) thin films patterned into periodic lattices of nanoscale holes or dots are candidated for UHD data storage media, an drelated wire network patterns are of fundamental interest as examples of controlled phase transitions in "artificial spin ice". Our recent Physical Review Letter reported an experimental study of the static and dynamic magnetic properties of FM permalloy thin films patterned as Penrose P2 (quasicrystal) tilings that exhibit long-range order, but aperiodic translational symmetry. Our DC magnetization and ferromagnetic resonance data constitute, we believe, the first experimental study of th espin wave dynamics of an artificial FM quasicrystalline thin film. Ground-breaking efforts were required to both pattern and deposit the sample film materials, and to execute large-scale numerical simulations of their static and dynamic behavior. This work demonstrates a new method for controlling the evolution of FM domain walls and spin wave spectra in magnetic media, in spite of a lack of periodic symmetry in an artificial quasicrystalline pattern. Simulations reveal a remarkably controlled sequence of reversals of individual film segments located on sublattices of the quasicrystal pattern, which may signal the occurence of true metamagnetic phase transitions in larger-area samples. These results directly imply FM films patterned as Penrose P2 tilings constitute a novel class of magnonic crystals whose magnon frequency dispersion and physical properties were heretofore unknown.