Multiple magnetic droplet soliton modes

Droplet solitons are large amplitude localized spin-wave excitations that can be created in magnetic thin films with uniaxial anisotropy by a spin-polarized current flowing through an electrical nanocontact. Here, we report a low-temperature (4 K) experimental study that shows there are multiple and, under certain conditions, combinations of droplet modes, each mode with a distinct high-frequency spin precession (tens of gigahertz). Low-frequency ($\ensuremath{\lesssim}1\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}\mathrm{GHz}$) voltage noise is used to assess the stability of droplet modes. It is found that droplets are stable only in a limited range of applied field and current, typically near the current and field at which they nucleate, in agreement with recent predictions. Applied fields in the film plane favor multiple droplet modes, whereas fields perpendicular to the film plane tend to stabilize a single droplet mode. Micromagnetic simulations are used to show that spatial variation in the energy landscape in the nanocontact region (e.g., spatial variation of magnetic anisotropy or magnetic field) can lead to quantized droplet modes and low-frequency mode modulation, characteristics observed in our experiments.