Thin-Film Solid State Devices Based on Nonlinear Magnetostatic Waves

It is now well-known that a new class of solid-state devices can be constructed using linear magnetostatic guided waves (MSW) or surface waves (MSSW) as their basis. Such waves can propagate, for example, in ferrimagnetic materials in the high frequency part of the microwave spectrum and the technology now exists for the preparation of high quality thin-films of yttrium-iron-garnet (YIG). This fact permits the construction of devices in micro-minature form. In this paper, two important theoretical foundations are laid. The first concerns the generation of MSSW solitons on small samples of YIG and the second concerns nonlinear Bragg diffraction and TE-TM conversion of light by the grating presented by nonlinear MSSW to waves at optical frequencies. The potential these effects have for new microwave and magnetooptical devices is very briefly discussed.