Giant magnon spin conductivity approaching the two-dimensional transport regime in ultrathin yttrium iron garnet films

Abstract Conductivities are key material parameters that govern various types of transport (electronic charge, spin, heat etc.) driven by thermodynamic forces. Magnons, the elementary excitations of the magnetic order, flow under the gradient of a magnon chemical potential in proportion to a magnon (spin) conductivity σm. The magnetic insulator yttrium iron garnet (YIG) is the material of choice for efficient magnon spin transport. Here we report an unexpected giant σm in record-thin YIG films with thicknesses down to 3.7 nm when the number of occupied two-dimensional (2D) subbands is reduced from a large number to a few, which corresponds to a transition from 3D to 2D magnon transport. We extract a 2D spin conductivity (≈1 S) at room temperature, comparable to the (electronic) spin conductivity of the high-mobility two-dimensional electron gas in GaAs quantum wells at millikelvin temperatures. Such high conductivities offer unique opportunities to develop low-dissipation magnon-based spintronic devices.