Transmission of microwave spin waves through a microstructured magnonic crystal in the form of a permalloy waveguide of a periodically varying width was studied experimentally and theoretically. The spin wave characteristics were measured by spatially-resolved Brillouin light scattering microscopy. A rejection frequency band was clearly observed. The band gap frequency was controlled by the applied magnetic field. The measured spin-wave intensity as a function of frequency and propagation distance is in good agreement with a model calculation.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

In the last two decades, focused ion beam (FIB) systems have been used for sample preparation. For example, the edges of a sample can be polished for analytical measurements or continuous cross-sections can be milled for three-dimensional (3D) tomography and reconstruction. One major challenge in both procedures is the so-called curtaining effect, i.e., increasing surface roughness in the direction of the milling depth. The roughness of the cut can influence the result of the measurement and the segmentation process. In the present study, the authors report on two different methods to reduce the curtaining effect, namely, a hardware- and a software-based solution. For instance, Tescan implemented the so-called “rocking stage” in its plasma FIB. However, this is not available for other FIB systems. Therefore, for our FEI gallium FIB, an inhouse-developed goniometer stage is installed, which can be adapted as necessary. With this relatively inexpensive solution, the sample can be rotated around an additional axis and tilted by ±8°. Different sample heights are adjustable, and the sample's edge can be polished and imaged without stage movement. However, for automated milling and imaging procedures such as 3D tomography, such a tilting stage is not feasible. Therefore, as a second option, an image processing method is proposed that can be applied after the milling procedure on a whole image stack. A novel variation of this method for mathematical image processing is developed to reduce milling artifacts. Besides the curtaining effect, additional artifacts such as discontinuities caused by redeposition of previously removed materials or charging effects can be removed. The method is applied to the entire 3D dataset, and distortions are reduced by using information of their particular structure and directional dependence. The resulting new image stack can then be used to compose a 3D volume reconstruction. As an example, the geometries of silicon carbide particles reinforcing an aluminum matrix can be measured with nearly no milling artifacts.

Binary surface reliefs with sub-wavelength features making up a pseudorandom pattern based on mathematical Galois fields GF(p m) [1, 2] can scatter incoming waves into a large number of diffraction maxima within a huge solid angle. A one-dimensional (1D) Galois number sequence can be folded into a two-dimensional (2D) array by the sino-representation [2]. This concept was been verified for acoustic waves a long time ago [3, 4] and is investigated here for visible light and THz waves. Our Galois diffusers are designed as reflection reliefs and realised by electron beam lithography for the optical regime and UV photolithography for the THz regime. Our results show that optical and THz Galois surfaces are excellent diffusers for electromagnetic waves; they distribute the reflected intensity evenly over a large number of maxima nearly within the entire half solid angle in the backward direction.

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Time decay of the magnetization of the arrays of Permalloy circular dots of submicron sizes was measured on a long time scale (hours) near the vortex nucleation field. A considerable influence of external magnetic field and temperature on the slow magnetization dynamics was detected. The observed effects are explained by overcoming the field dependent energy barriers in the process of vortex nucleation. The magnetic viscosity and energy barriers were found from the magnetization time decay dependencies.