No Arabic abstract
Antiferromagnets are promising for magneto-optical light control that could be performed at THz frequencies via excitation of the quasi-antiferromagnetic spin modes. However, most of the antiferromagnetic crystals possess optical anisotropy that is usually treated as an unfavorable condition for the magneto-optical measurements: optical anisotropy is known to diminish the Faraday rotation with respect to the case of the isotropic medium. Here we show that the situation could be quite opposite: a phenomenon of birefringence mediated enhancement of the magneto-optical activity appears if orientation of the incident light linear polarization is chosen properly. The present study relies on the experimental, analytical and numerical studies of iron borate FeBO$_3$ crystals. We demonstrate a significant increase of the magneto-optical activity by more than 10 times for 70$^circ$ angle between light polarization and incidence plane instead of commonly-used p- or s-polarizations. It provides a unique sensitivity to the in-plane magnetization of FeBO$_3$ that is crucial for the pump-probe studies, magneto-optical microscopy and other. The most important practical application of the observed phenomenon is the light modulation with up to 100$%$ efficiency at THz frequencies. The approach is applicable to other types of the birefringent crystals with the magneto-optical response.
We present measurements of the Faraday effect in n-type InSb. The Verdet coefficient was determined for a range of carrier concentrations near $10^{17}$ $text{cm}^{-3}$ in the $lambda$ = 8 $mu$m - 12 $mu$m long-wave infrared regime. The absorption coefficient was measured and a figure of merit calculated for each sample. From these measurements, we calculated the carrier effective mass and illustrate the variation of the figure of merit with wavelength. A method for creating a tunable bandpass filter via the Faraday rotation is discussed along with preliminary results from a prototype device.
One of the long sought-after goals in manipulation of light through light-matter interactions is the realization of magnetic-field-tuneable colouration, so-called magneto-chromatic effect, which holds great promise for optical, biochemical and medical applications due to its contactless and non-invasive nature. This goal can be achieved by magnetic-field controlled birefringence, where colours are produced by the interference between phase-retarded components of transmitted polarised light. Thus far birefringence-tuneable coloration has been demonstrated using electric field, material chirality and mechanical strain but magnetic field control remained elusive due to either weak magneto-optical response of transparent media or low transmittance to visible light of magnetically responsive media, such as ferrofluids. Here we demonstrate magnetically tuneable colouration of aqueous suspensions of two-dimensional cobalt-doped titanium oxide which exhibit an anomalously large magneto-birefringence effect. The colour of the suspensions can be tuned over more than two wavelength cycles in the visible range by moderate magnetic fields below 0.8 T. We show that such giant magneto-chromatic response is due to particularly large phase retardation (>3 pi) of the polarised light, which in its turn is a combined result of a large Cotton-Mouton coefficient (three orders of magnitude larger than for known liquid crystals), relatively high saturation birefringence (delta n = 2 x 10^-4) and high transparency of our suspensions to visible light. The work opens a new avenue to achieve tuneable colouration through engineered magnetic birefringence and can readily be extended to other magnetic 2D nanocrystals. The demonstrated effect can be used in a variety of magneto-optical applications, including magnetic field sensors, wavelength-tuneable optical filters and see-through printing.
The origin and properties of the transverse non-reciprocal magneto-optical (nMO) effect were studied. The transverse nMO effect occurs in the case when light propagates perpendicularly to the magnetic field. It was demonstrated that light can experience the transverse nMO effect only when it propagates in the vicinity of a boundary between two materials and the optical field at least in one material is evanescent. The transverse nMO effect is pronounced in the cases of surface plasmons and waveguiding modes. The magnitude of the transverse nMO effect is comparable to or greater than the magnitude of the longitudinal nMO effect. In the case of surface plasmons propagating at a boundary between the transition metal and the dielectric it is possible to magnify the transverse nMO effect and the magneto-optical figure-of-merit may increase from a few percents to above 100%. The scalar dispersion relation, which describes the transverse MO effect in cases of waveguide modes and surface plasmons propagating in a multilayer MO slab, was derived.
We unravel the underlying near-field mechanism of the enhancement of the magneto-optical activity of bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet films (Bi:YIG) loaded with gold nanoparticles. The experimental results show that the embedded gold nanoparticles lead to a broadband enhancement of the magneto-optical activity with respect to the activity of the bare Bi:YIG films. Full vectorial near- and far-field simulations demonstrate that this broadband enhancement is the result of a magneto-optically enabled cross-talking of orthogonal localized plasmon resonances. Our results pave the way to the on-demand design of the magneto-optical properties of hybrid magneto-plasmonic circuitry.
To develop highly sensitive, stable and repeatable surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates is crucial for analytical detection, which is a challenge for traditional metallic structures. Herein, by taking advantage of the high surface activity of 1T transition metal telluride, we have fabricated high-density gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) that are spontaneously in-situ prepared on the 1T MoTe2 atomic layers via a facile method, forming a plasmonic-2D material hybrid SERS substrate. This AuNP formation is unique to the 1T phase, which is repressed in 2H MoTe2 with less surface activity. The hybrid structure generates coupling effects of electromagnetic and chemical enhancements, as well as excellent molecule adsorption, leading to the ultrasensitive (4*10^-17 M) and reproducible detection. Additionally, the immense fluorescence and photobleaching phenomena are mostly avoided. Flexible SERS tapes have been demonstrated in practical applications. Our approach facilitates the ultrasensitive SERS detection by a facile method, as well as the better mechanistic understanding of SERS beyond plasmonic effects.