Manipulating microwaves with magnetic-dipolar-mode vortices

There has been a surge of interest in the subwavelength confinement of electromagnetic fields. It is well known that, in optics, subwavelength confinement can be obtained from surface plasmon (quasielectrostatic) oscillations. In this article, we propose to realize subwavelength confinement in microwaves by using dipolar-mode (quasimagnetostatic) magnon oscillations in ferrite particles. Our studies of interactions between microwave electromagnetic fields and small ferrite particles with magnetic-dipolar-mode (MDM) oscillations show strong localization of electromagnetic energy. MDM oscillations in a ferrite disk are at the origin of topological singularities resulting in Poynting vector vortices and symmetry breakings of the microwave near fields. We show that new subwavelength microwave structures can be realized based on a system of interacting MDM ferrite disks. Wave propagation of electromagnetic signals in such structures is characterized by topological phase variations. Interactions of microwave fields with an MDM ferrite disk and MDM-disk arrays open a perspective for creating engineered electromagnetic fields with unique symmetry properties.