Localization Properties of Quantized Magnetostatic Modes in Nanocubes

Abstract

We investigate the dynamical properties of a system of interacting magnetic dipoles disposed in sites of an sc lattice and forming a cubic-shaped sample of size determined by the cube edge length (N-1)a (a being the lattice constant, N representing the number of dipolar planes). The dipolar field resulting from the dipole-dipole interactions is calculated numerically in points of the axis connecting opposite cube face centers (central axis) by collecting individual contributions to this field coming from each of the N atomic planes perpendicular to the central axis. The applied magnetic field is assumed to be oriented along the central axis, magnetizing uniformly the whole sample, all the dipoles being aligned parallelly in the direction of the applied field. The frequency spectrum of magnetostatic waves propagating in the direction of the applied field is found numerically by solving the Landau-Lifshitz equation of motion including the local (nonhomogeneous) dipolar field component; the mode amplitude spatial distributions (mode profiles) are depicted as well. It is found that only the two energetically highest modes have bulk-extended character. All the remaining modes are of localized nature; more precisely, the modes forming the lower part of the spectrum are localized in the subsurface region, while the upper-spectrum modes are localized around the sample center. We show that the mode localization regions narrow down as the cube size, N, increases (we investigated the range of N=21 to N=101), and in sufficiently large cubes one obtains practically only center-localized and surface-localized magnetostatic modes.