Four-magnon decay of magnetostatic surface waves in yttrium iron garnet films

The four-magnon instability of magnetostatic surface waves (MSSWs) in yttrium iron garnet epitaxial films is investigated experimentally. It is shown that four-magnon instability for MSSWs with wave numbers 30–600 cm −1 is a decay instability and develops for values of the wave magnetization close to the threshold level for second-order parametric instability of a homogeneous transverse pump wave. When the supercriticality of the MSSW power is 15–20 dB, the generated parametric spin waves themselves become unstable with respect to the four-magnon interaction, so that kinetic instability develops in the film. It is shown that the pump signal transmitted through the signal and the length of the “nonlinear” part of the film, where a MSSW is capable of exciting parametric spin waves, increase as the pump power is increased.