Unconventional Spin Pumping and Magnetic Damping in an Insulating Compensated Ferrimagnet

Recently, the interest in spin pumping (SP) has escalated from ferromagnets into antiferromagnetic systems, potentially enabling fundamental physics and magnonic applications. Compensated ferrimagnets are considered alternative platforms for bridging ferro- and antiferromagnets, but their SP and the associated magnetic damping have been largely overlooked so far despite their seminal importance for magnonics. Herein, an unconventional SP together with magnetic damping in an insulating compensated ferrimagnet Gd3Fe5O12 (GdIG) is reported. Remarkably, the divergence of the nonlocal effective magnetic damping induced by SP close to the compensation temperature in GdIG/Cu/Pt heterostructures is identified unambiguously. Furthermore, the coherent and incoherent spin currents, generated by SP and the spin Seebeck effect, respectively, undergo a distinct direction change with the variation of temperature. The physical mechanisms underlying these observations are self-consistently clarified by the ferrimagnetic counterpart of SP and the handedness-related spin-wave spectra. The findings broaden the conventional paradigm of the ferromagnetic SP model and open new opportunities for exploring the ferrimagnetic magnonic devices.

Automated summary

This study reports the unconventional spin pumping and magnetic damping phenomena observed in an insulating compensated ferrimagnet Gd3Fe5O12. The divergence of the nonlocal effective magnetic damping induced by spin pumping close to the compensation temperature in GdIG/Cu/Pt heterostructures is identified, and the coherent and incoherent spin currents generated by spin pumping and the spin Seebeck effect undergo a distinct direction change with the variation of temperature. These findings broaden the conventional paradigm of the ferromagnetic spin pumping model and open new opportunities for exploring ferrimagnetic magnonic devices.