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Photoluminescence from spatially inhomogeneous plasmonic nanostructures exhibits fascinating wavelength-dependent nonlinear behaviors due to the intraband recombination of hot electrons excited into the conduction band of the metal. The properties of the excited carrier distribution and the role of localized plasmonic modes are subjects of debate. In this work, we use plasmonic gap-mode resonators with precise nanometer-scale confinement to show that the nonlinear photoluminescence behavior can become dominated by non-thermal contributions produced by the excited carrier population that strongly deviates from the Fermi-Dirac distribution due to the confinement-induced large-momentum free carrier absorption beyond the dipole approximation. These findings open new pathways for controllable light conversion using nonequilibrium electron states at the nanoscale., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Large-amplitude magnetization dynamics is substantially more complex compared to the low-amplitude linear regime, due to the inevitable emergence of nonlinearities. One of the fundamental nonlinear phenomena is the nonlinear damping enhancement, which imposes strict limitations on the operation and efficiency of magnetic nanodevices. In particular, nonlinear damping prevents excitation of coherent magnetization auto-oscillations driven by the injection of spin current into spatially extended magnetic regions. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate that nonlinear damping can be controlled by the ellipticity of magnetization precession. By balancing different contributions to anisotropy, we minimize the ellipticity and achieve coherent magnetization oscillations driven by spatially extended spin current injection into a microscopic magnetic disk. Our results provide a route for the implementation of efficient active spintronic and magnonic devices driven by spin current.

Utilization of pure spin currents not accompanied by the flow of electrical charge provides unprecedented opportunities for the emerging technologies based on the electron's spin degree of freedom, such as spintronics and magnonics. It was recently shown that pure spin currents can be used to excite coherent magnetization dynamics in magnetic nanostructures. However, because of the intrinsic nonlinear self-localization effects, magnetic auto-oscillations in the demonstrated devices were spatially confined, preventing their applications as sources of propagating spin waves in magnonic circuits using these waves as signal carriers. Here, we experimentally demonstrate efficient excitation and directional propagation of coherent spin waves generated by pure spin current. We show that this can be achieved by using the nonlocal spin injection mechanism, which enables flexible design of magnetic nanosystems and allows one to efficiently control their dynamic characteristics.

With the advent of pure-spin-current sources, spin-based electronic (spintronic) devices no longer require electrical charge transfer, opening new possibilities for both conducting and insulating spintronic systems. Pure spin currents have been used to suppress noise caused by thermal fluctuations in magnetic nanodevices, amplify propagating magnetization waves, and to reduce the dynamic damping in magnetic films. However, generation of coherent auto-oscillations by pure spin currents has not been achieved so far. Here we demonstrate the generation of single-mode coherent auto-oscillations in a device that combines local injection of a pure spin current with enhanced spin-wave radiation losses. Counterintuitively, radiation losses enable excitation of auto-oscillation, suppressing the nonlinear processes that prevent auto-oscillation by redistributing the energy between different modes. Our devices exhibit auto-oscillations at moderate current densities, at a microwave frequency tunable over a wide range. These findings suggest a new route for the implementation of nanoscale microwave sources for next-generation integrated electronics.