Magnon valves based on YIG/NiO/YIG all-insulating magnon junctions

As an alternative angular momentum carrier, magnons or spin waves can be utilized to encode information and breed magnon-based circuits with ultralow power consumption and non-Boolean data processing capability. In order to construct such a circuit, it is indispensable to design some electronic components with both long magnon decay and coherence length and effective control over magnon transport. Here we show that an all-insulating magnon junction composed of a magnetic insulator (MI1)/antiferromagnetic insulator (AFI)/magnetic insulator (MI2) sandwich (Y3Fe5O12/NiO/Y3Fe5O12) can completely turn a thermogradient-induced magnon current on or off as the two Y3Fe5O12 layers are aligned parallel or antiparallel. The magnon decay length in NiO is about 3.5-4.5 nm between 100 and 200 K for thermally activated magnons. The insulating magnon valve (magnon junction), as a basic building block, possibly sheds light on the naissance of efficient magnon-based circuits, including non-Boolean logic, memory, diodes, transistors, magnon waveguides, and switches with sizable on-off ratios.