Ultrafast optically induced spin transfer in ferromagnetic alloys

Published

January 17, 2020

Author(s)

Moritz Hofherr, Soren Hauser, J. K. Dewhurst, Phoebe Tengdin, S Sakshath, Hans Nembach, Tobias Weber, Justin Shaw, Thomas J. Silva, H C. Kapteyn, M Cinchetti, B Rethfeld, M M. Murnane, D Steil, B Stadtmuller, S Sharma, Martin Aeschlimann, S Mathias

Abstract

The vision of using light to manipulate electronic and spin excitations in materials on their fundamental time and length scales requires new approaches in experiment and theory to observe and understand these excitations. The ultimate speed limit for all-optical manipulation requires control schemes for which the electronic or magnetic subsystems of the materials are coherently manipulated on the time scale of the laser excitation pulse. In our work, we provide experimental evidence of such a direct, ultrafast, and coherent spin transfer between two magnetic subsystems of an alloy of Fe and Ni. Our experimental findings are fully supported by time-dependent density functional theory simulations and, hence, suggest the possibility of coherently controlling spin dynamics on subfemtosecond time scales, i.e., the birth of the research area of attomagnetism.

Citation

Science Advances

Volume

6

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aay8717

Local Download

Keywords

Ultrafast demagnetization, spin dynamics, high harmonic generation

Citation

Hofherr, M. , Hauser, S. , Dewhurst, J. , Tengdin, P. , Sakshath, S. , Nembach, H. , Weber, T. , Shaw, J. , Silva, T. , Kapteyn, H. , Cinchetti, M. , Rethfeld, B. , Murnane, M. , Steil, D. , Stadtmuller, B. , Sharma, S. , Aeschlimann, M. and Mathias, S. (2020), Ultrafast optically induced spin transfer in ferromagnetic alloys, Science Advances, [online], https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aay8717, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=927084 (Accessed October 10, 2025)