Control of magnetostatic waves in thin films by means of spatially nonuniform bias fields

Although magnetostatic wave devices normally employ spatially uniform magnetic bias, control of important features of the modes is afforded through judicious use of dc field gradients. Such control can be the basis for new forms of microwave signal processors.Gradients in either the field magnitude, direction, or both can be employed to affect wave dispersion or mode spectra. This is done to control prespecified characteristics such as frequency, rf energy distribution, impedance, and the velocity of energy propagation.Very general mathematical analyses of both the forward volume wave and surface wave geometries are developed for cases where the effective magnetic bias has, depending upon the mode, transverse spatial variation along either the ferrite film width or thickness caused by the applied field, saturation magnetization, magnetic anisotropy — or some combination.Computer simulation has been used to obtain eigenfrequencies and eigenmodes when the bias is uniform or nonuniform. The latter cases reveal that a great deal of control over the mode energy distributions can be exercised by the proper choice of gradients. For example, a forward volume wave can be forced to have strong field-displacement characteristics that are either nearly reciprocal or very strongly nonreciprocal.