Near-field optical microscopy by means of infrared photocurrent mapping has rapidly developed in recent years. In this letter we introduce a near-field induced contrast mechanism arising when a conducting surface, exhibiting a magnetic moment, is exposed to a nanoscale heat source. The magneto-caloritronic response of the sample to near-field excitation of a localized thermal gradient leads to a contrast determined by the local state of magnetization. By comparing the measured electric response of a magnetic reference sample with numerical simulations we derive an estimate of the field enhancement and the corresponding temperature profile induced on the sample surface.
Intense electromagnetic evanescent fields are thermally excited in near fields on material surfaces (at distances smaller than the wavelength of peak thermal radiation). The property of the fields is of strong interest for it is material-specific and is important for understanding a variety of surface-related effects, such as friction forces, Casimir forces, near-field heat transfer, and surface-coupled molecular dynamics. On metal surfaces, relevance of surface plasmon polaritons (SPlPs), coupled to collective motion of conduction electrons, has attracted strong interest, but has not been explicitly clarified up to the present time. Here, using a passive terahertz (THz) near-field microscope with unprecedented high sensitivity, we unveil detailed nature of thermally generated evanescent fields (wavelength:lamda0~14.5micron) on metals at room temperature. Our experimental results unambiguously indicate that the thermal waves are short-wavelength fluctuating electromagnetic fields, from which relevance of SPlPs is ruled out.
Superconducting quantum circuits are one of the leading quantum computing platforms. To advance superconducting quantum computing to a point of practical importance, it is critical to identify and address material imperfections that lead to decoherence. Here, we use terahertz Scanning Near-field Optical Microscopy (SNOM) to probe the local dielectric properties and carrier concentrations of wet-etched aluminum resonators on silicon, one of the most characteristic components of the superconducting quantum processors. Using a recently developed vector calibration technique, we extract the THz permittivity from spectroscopy in proximity to the microwave feedline. Fitting the extracted permittivity to the Drude model, we find that silicon in the etched channel has a carrier concentration greater than buffer oxide etched silicon and we explore post-processing methods to reduce the carrier concentrations. Our results show that near-field THz investigations can be applied to quantitatively evaluate and identify potential loss channels in quantum devices.
We study spin relaxation in dilute magnetic semiconductors near a ferromagnetic transition, where spin fluctuations become strong. An enhancement in the scattering rate of itinerant carriers from the spin fluctuations of localized impurities leads to a change in the dominant spin relaxation mechanism from Dyakonov-Perel to spin flips in scattering. On the ferromagnetic side of the transition, we show that due to the presence of two magnetic components -- the itinerant carriers and the magnetic impurities -- with different gyromagnetic ratios, the relaxation rate of the total magnetization can be quite different from the relaxation rate of the spin. Following a disturbance of the equilibrium magnetization, the spin is initially redistributed between the two components to restore the equilibrium magnetization. It is only on a longer time scale, controlled by the spin-orbit interaction, that the total spin itself relaxes to its equilibrium state.
Layered and two-dimensional (2D) materials such as graphene, boron nitride, transition metal dichalcogenides(TMDCs), and black phosphorus (BP) have intriguing fundamental physical properties and bear promise of numerous important applications in electronics and optics. Of them, BP is a novel 2D material that has been theoretically predicted to acquire plasmonic behavior for frequencies below ~0.4 eV when highly doped. The electronic properties of BP are unique due to an anisotropic structure, which could strongly influence collective electronic excitations. Advantages of BP as a material for nanoelectronics and nanooptics are due to the fact that, in contrast to metals, the free carrier density in it can be dynamically controlled by electrostatic gating, which has been demonstrated by its use in field-effect transistors. Despite all the interest that BP attracts, near-field and plasmonic properties of BP have not yet been investigated experimentally. Here we report the first observation of nanoscopic near-field properties of BP. We have discovered near field patterns of outside bright fringes and high surface polarizability of nanofilm BP consistent with its surface-metallic, plasmonic behavior at mid-infrared (mid-IR) frequencies. This behavior is highly frequency-dispersive, disappearing above frequency, {omega} =1070 cm-1, which allowed us to estimate the plasma frequency and carrier density. We have also observed similar behavior in other 2D semiconductors such as TMDCs but not in 2D insulators such as boron nitride. This new phenomenon is attributed to surface charging of the semiconductor nanofilms. This discovery opens up a new field of research and potential applications in nanoplasmonics and optoelectronics.
We have observed peculiar magnetization textures in Ni$_{80}$Pd$_{20}$ nanostructures using three different imaging techniques: magnetic force microscopy, photoemission electron microscopy under polarized X-ray absorption, and scanning electron microscopy with polarization analysis. The appearances of diamond-like domains with strong lateral charges and of weak stripe structures bring into evidence the presence of both a transverse and a perpendicular anisotropy in these nanostrips. This anisotropy is seen to reinforce as temperature decreases, as testified by a simplified domain structure at 150 K. A thermal stress relaxation model is proposed to account for these observations. Elastic calculations coupled to micromagnetic simulations support qualitatively this model.