Noise Properties of Two Mutually Coupled Spin-Transfer Nanooscillators in the Phase Locking Regime

Abstract

Introduction. Today, many research endeavors are devoted to the miniaturization of microwave sources. One of the promising approaches is the use of magnetic nanostructures (spintronics elements), providing a wide range of frequency tuning and low power consumption. The main disadvantage of spintronics generators (spintransfer nanoscillators ‒ STNO) is a low output power of generated oscillations (tens of nanowatts and less). A possible solution is to sum up the power of many STNOs in a mutual synchronization mode.Aim. The investigation of noise properties of two connected STNOs with identical and non-identical parameters in a phase synchronization mode.Materials and methods. A model was developed of two STNOs interconnected by spin waves taking into account thermal noises. Spectral power densities of the amplitude and phase noise were obtained by the method of effective linearization.Results. Dependencies were obtained in a general form for attenuation coefficients of the amplitude and phase fluctuations of noise sources for each STNO. Three cases of synchronization were considered: completely identical STNOs, two identical STNOs but with different oscillation frequencies, and two non-identical STNOs, differing in an allowance of self-excitation by frequencies and amplitudes of the oscillations. It was possible to obtain a gain in the amplitude and phase noise for two identical STNOs. In this case, an increase in the allowance of self-excitation led to a decrease in the level of phase and amplitude noise.Conclusion. This analysis of the attenuation coefficients for non-identical STNOs demonstrates the possibility of improving the noise properties of each of the generators. In this case, the best noise value is obtained for an STNO with greater stability in a stand-alone mode.

Keywords

• spin-transfer nanooscillator
• mutual phase locking
• noise properties
• spectral power density