Perspectives on inverse design for AI magnonics

Abstract

Inverse design - specifying a desired functionality and letting a computational algorithm find the optimal structure - has emerged as a powerful paradigm for magnonic device engineering. In this article, we survey the rapidly growing field of inverse-design magnonics, organising it along two axes: the design variables (topology, material parameters, and magnetic field landscape) and the algorithmic toolbox (gradient-free, gradient-based, and neural-network-based methods) together with the differentiable micromagnetic solvers that enable them. We then identify open frontiers that we consider most promising for the next phase of the field: sensitivity analysis and robust design to bridge the gap between simulation and experiment; input shaping and transducer optimisation; the incorporation of nonlinear spin-wave effects as an explicit design resource; spatially structured amplification; self-adapting media and machine-learning-based design; and the long-term vision of a universal, reconfigurable magnonic platform. We argue that magnonics and artificial intelligence are converging from two directions - machine-learning tools for designing magnonic devices, and magnonic devices as hardware for neuromorphic computation - and propose the term AI magnonics to describe this emerging paradigm.