No Arabic abstract
We demonstrate a novel method for the excitation of sizable magneto-optical effects in Au by means of the laser-induced injection of hot spin-polarized electrons in Au/Fe/MgO(001) heterostructures. It is based on the energy- and spin-dependent electron transmittance of Fe/Au interface which acts as a spin filter for non-thermalized electrons optically excited in Fe. We show that after crossing the interface, majority electrons propagate through the Au layer with the velocity on the order of 1 nm/fs (close to the Fermi velocity) and the decay length on the order of 100 nm. Featuring ultrafast functionality and requiring no strong external magnetic fields, spin injection results in a distinct magneto-optical response of Au. We develop a formalism based on the phase of the transient complex MOKE response and demonstrate its robustness in a plethora of experimental and theoretical MOKE studies on Au, including our ab initio calculations. Our work introduces a flexible tool to manipulate magneto-optical properties of metals on the femtosecond timescale that holds high potential for active magneto-photonics, plasmonics, and spintronics.
Employing femtosecond laser pulses in front and back side pumping of Au/Fe/MgO(001) combined with detection in two-photon photoelectron emission spectroscopy we analyze local relaxation dynamics of excited electrons in buried Fe, injection into Au across the Fe-Au interface, and electron transport across the Au layer at 0.6 to 2.0 eV above the Fermi energy. By analysis as a function of Au film thickness we obtain the electron lifetimes of bulk Au and Fe and distinguish the relaxation in the heterostructures constituents. We also show that the excited electrons propagate through Au in a superdiffusive regime and conclude further that electron injection across the epitaxial interface proceeds ballistically by electron wavepacket propagation.
We report on optical reflectivity experiments performed on Cd3As2 over a broad range of photon energies and magnetic fields. The observed response clearly indicates the presence of 3D massless charge carriers. The specific cyclotron resonance absorption in the quantum limit implies that we are probing massless Kane electrons rather than symmetry-protected 3D Dirac particles. The latter may appear at a smaller energy scale and are not directly observed in our infrared experiments.
The optical susceptibility is a local, minimally-invasive and spin-selective probe of the ground state of a two-dimensional electron gas. We apply this probe to a gated monolayer of MoS$_2$. We demonstrate that the electrons are spin polarized. Of the four available bands, only two are occupied. These two bands have the same spin but different valley quantum numbers. We argue that strong Coulomb interactions are a key aspect of this spontaneous symmetry breaking. The Bohr radius is so small that even electrons located far apart in phase space interact, facilitating exchange couplings to align the spins.
The growth mode, magnetic and magneto-optical properties of epitaxial Au/Co/Au(111) ultrathin trilayers grown by pulsed-laser deposition (PLD) under ultra-high vacuum are presented. Sapphire wafers buffered with a single-crystalline Mo(110) bilayer were used as substrates. Owing to PLD-induced interfacial intermixing at the lower Co/Au(111) interface, a layer-by-layer growth mode is promoted. Surprisingly, despite this intermixing, ferromagnetic behavior is found at room temperature for coverings starting at 1 atomic layer (AL). The films display perpendicular magnetization with anisotropy constants reduced by 50% compared to TD-grown or electrodeposited films, and with a coercivity more than one order of magnitude lower ($lesssim$ 5 mT). The magneto-optical (MO) response in the low Co thickness range is dominated by Au/Co interface contributions. For thicknesses starting at 3 AL Co, the MO response has a linear dependence with the Co thickness, indicative of a continuous-film-like MO behavior.
Terahertz (THz) spin-to-charge conversion has become an increasingly important process for THz pulse generation and as a tool to probe ultrafast spin interactions at magnetic interfaces. However, its relation to traditional, steady state, ferromagnetic resonance techniques is poorly understood. Here we investigate nanometric trilayers of Co/X/Pt (X=Ti, Au or Au0:85W0:15) as a function of the X layer thickness, where THz emission generated by the inverse spin Hall effect is compared to the Gilbert damping of the ferromagnetic resonance. Through the insertion of the X layer we show that the ultrafast spin current injected in the non-magnetic layer defines a direct spin conductance, whereas the Gilbert damping leads to an effective spin mixing-conductance of the trilayer. Importantly, we show that these two parameters are connected to each other and that spin-memory losses can be modeled via an effective Hamiltonian with Rashba fields. This work highlights that magneto-circuits concepts can be successfully extended to ultrafast spintronic devices, as well as enhancing the understanding of spin-to-charge conversion processes through the complementarity between ultrafast THz spectroscopy and steady state techniques.