Journal article
Reconstruction of magnon eigenfunctions by X-ray magnetic vector chronoscopy
- Abstract:
- The collective precession of magnetization manifests itself as magnon modes. These modes are governed by complex-valued vectorial eigenfunctions, which have remained experimentally challenging to observe. Here we introduce X-ray magnetic vector chronoscopy (XMVC), a time-resolved resonant scattering method that reconstructs the full magnetization dynamics with angular resolution of 0.1° (±0.01°). Applied to a synthetic antiferromagnetic multilayer (Si/NiFe (8 nm)/Ru (0.8 nm)/CoFeB (5.5 nm)), XMVC enables magnon state tomography, by directly measuring the nanoscale vectorial eigenfunctions of hybridized modes arising from magnon–magnon coupling. This approach provides full access to the system’s non-Hermitian Hamiltonian, revealing the complex-valued coupling strengths and non-orthogonal eigenbases. These results establish XMVC as an experimental platform for studying nanoscale spin systems by extracting the eigenfunctions of the system.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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- Files:
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(Preview, Accepted manuscript, pdf, 9.7MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1038/s41565-026-02185-2
Authors
+ Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/0439y7842
- Grant:
- EP/W524311/1
- 2888228
- Programme:
- Diamond-EPSRC studentship
+ Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/01kjwqy11
- Grant:
- 2025M773402
- 2025M773358
- Programme:
- China Postdoctoral Science Foundation
+ Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/027s68j25
- Grant:
- 2022YFA1403602
- Programme:
- National Key R&D Program of China
+ Chinese Academy of Sciences
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/034t30j35
- Grant:
- YSBR-084
+ National Natural Science Foundation of China
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/01h0zpd94
- Grant:
- 12241406
- Publisher:
- Springer Nature
- Journal:
- Nature Nanotechnology More from this journal
- Publication date:
- 2026-05-27
- Acceptance date:
- 2026-04-23
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
1748-3395
- ISSN:
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1748-3387
- Language:
-
English
- Pubs id:
-
2410807
- Local pid:
-
pubs:2410807
- Deposit date:
-
2026-04-23
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Jin et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2026
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2026
- Notes:
- The author accepted manuscript (AAM) of this paper has been made available under the University of Oxford's Open Access Publications Policy, and a CC BY public copyright licence has been applied.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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