Spin waves propagation and confinement in conducting films at the micrometer scale

The propagating spin wave spectroscopy (PSWS) technique is applied for the first time to metallic thin film patterns, allowing to measure their magnetostatic wave modes. Using micrometer scale local excitation and detection, we show that magnetostatic surface waves propagate on a distance as long as 40 μm in a continuous permalloy film. In micrometer wide permalloy stripes, we observe both quantized spin wave modes and quasi-saturation modes, well explained by existing models. In addition, low-frequency additional modes were observed which, we suggest, are generated in the magnetically inhomogeneous edge regions.