Magnetomechanical Coupling in Magnetic Micro Mechanical Oscillator

A mechanical oscillator such as a cantilever enables highly sensitive mechanical detection due to its high Q factor. Moreover, recent advances in microfabrication technology have made it possible to fabricate a mechanical oscillator made of magnetic materials, which is a good playground to explore the magnetomechanical coupling via the spin-lattice interaction. In this chapter, we discuss experimental results on the cross-correlation effect between the magnetization and the mechanical vibration in a micro magnetic mechanical oscillator, which is made of a ferrimagnetic insulator yttrium iron garnet \(Y_{3}Fe_{5}O_{12}\) (YIG). We found that the resonant mechanical vibration of the YIG mechanical oscillator is modulated in accordance with the magnetization process in the oscillator. Systematic experiments and theoretical analysis revealed that the observed changes in the mechanical properties in the oscillator originate from the Young’s modulus modulation due to the magnetization rotation.