No Arabic abstract
Single-mode high-index-contrast waveguides have been ubiquitously exploited in optical, microwave, and phononic structures for achieving enhanced wave-matter interactions. Although micro-scale optomechanical and electro-optical devices have been widely studied, optomagnonic devices remain a grand challenge at the microscale. Here, we introduce a planar optomagnonic waveguide platform based on a ferrimagnetic insulator that simultaneously supports single transverse mode of spin waves (magnons) and highly confined optical modes. The co-localization of spin and light waves gives rise to enhanced inverse Faraday effect, and as a result, magnons are excited by an effective magnetic field generated by interacting optical photons. Moreover, the strongly enhanced optomagnonic interaction allows us to observe such effect using low-power (milliwatt level) light signals in the continuous-wave form, as opposed to high-intensity (megawatt peak power) light pulses that are typically required in magnetic bulk materials or thin films. The optically-driven magnons are detected electrically with preserved phase coherence, showing the feasibility for launching spin waves with low-power continuous optical fields.
The inverse Faraday effect (IFE), where a static magnetization is induced by circularly polarized light, offers a promising route to ultrafast control of spin states. Here we study the inverse Faraday effect in Mott insulators using the Floquet theory. In the Mott insulators with inversion symmetry, we find that the effective magnetic field induced by the IFE couples ferromagnetically to the neighboring spins. While for the Mott insulators without inversion symmetry, the effective magnetic field due to IFE couples antiferromagnetically to the neighboring spins. We apply the theory to the spin-orbit coupled single- and multi-orbital Hubbard model that is relevant for the Kitaev quantum spin liquid materials and demonstrate that the magnetic interactions can be tuned by light.
Combining the technologies of quantum optics and magnonics, we find that the circularly polarized laser can dynamically realize the quasiequilibrium magnon Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC). The Zeeman coupling between the laser and spins generates the optical Barnett field, and its direction is controllable by switching the laser chirality. We show that the optical Barnett field develops the total magnetization in insulating ferrimagnets with reversing the local magnetization, which leads to the quasiequilibrium magnon BEC. This laser-induced magnon BEC transition through optical Barnett effect, dubbed the optomagnonic Barnett effect, provides an access to coherent magnons in the high frequency regime of the order of terahertz. We also propose a realistic experimental setup to observe the optomagnonic Barnett effect using current device and measurement technologies as well as the laser chirping. The optomagnonic Barnett effect is a key ingredient for the application to ultrafast spin transport.
We have studied helicity dependent photocurrent (HDP) in Bi-based Dirac semimetal thin films. HDP increases with film thickness before it saturates, changes its sign when the majority carrier type is changed from electrons to holes and takes a sharp peak when the Fermi level lies near the charge neutrality point. These results suggest that irradiation of circularly polarized light to Dirac semimetals induces an effective magnetic field that aligns the carrier spin along the light spin angular momentum and generates a spin current along the film normal. The effective magnetic field is estimated to be orders of magnitude larger than that caused by the inverse Faraday effect (IFE) in typical transition metals. We consider the small effective mass and the large $g$-factor, characteristics of Dirac semimetals with strong spin orbit coupling, are responsible for the giant IFE, opening pathways to develop systems with strong light-spin coupling.
A circularly polarized light can induce a dissipationless dc current in a quantum nanoring which is responsible for a resonant helicity-driven contribution to magnetic moment. This current is not suppressed by thermal averaging despite its quantum nature. We refer to this phenomenon as the quantum resonant inverse Faraday effect. For weak electromagnetic field, when the characteristic coupling energy is small compared to the energy level spacing, we predict narrow resonances in the circulating current and, consequently, in the magnetic moment of the ring. For strong fields, the resonances merge into a wide peak with a width determined by the spectral curvature. We further demonstrate that weak short-range disorder splits the resonances and induces additional particularly sharp and high resonant peaks in dc current and magnetization. In contrast, long-range disorder leads to a chaotic behavior of the system in the vicinity of the separatrix that divides the phase space of the system into regions with dynamically localized and delocalized states.
A collective, macroscopic signature to detect radiation friction in laser-plasma experiments is proposed. In the interaction of superintense circularly polarized laser pulses with high density targets, the effective dissipation due to radiative losses allows the absorption of electromagnetic angular momentum, which in turn leads to the generation of a quasistatic axial magnetic field. This peculiar inverse Faraday effect is investigated by analytical modeling and three-dimensional simulations, showing that multi-gigagauss magnetic fields may be generated at laser intensities $>10^{23}~mbox{W cm}^{-2}$.