|

The official magazine of the ASCR

 


Important links

International cooperation

 

ESO

EUSCEA

AlphaGalileo

WFSJ

EUSJA General Assembly

eusja.jpg EUSJA General Assembly
& EUSJA Study Trip

Prague, Czech Republic
March 14–17, 2013

Experimental observation of the optical spin transfer torque

The journal Nature Physics published the discovery of scientists from the joint Laboratory of Opto-Spintronics at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University and the Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.

Authors: P. Nemec, E. Rozkotova, N. Tesarova, F. Trojanek, E. De Ranieri, K. Olejnik, J. Zemen, V. Novak, M. Cukr, P. Maly, T. Jungwirth

The spin transfer torque is a phenomenon in which angular momentum of a spin polarized electrical current entering a ferromagnet is transferred to the magnetization. The effect has opened a new research field of electrically driven magnetization dynamics in magnetic nanostructures and plays an important role in the development of a new generation of memory devices and tunable oscillators. Optical excitations of magnetic systems by laser pulses have been a separate research field whose aim is to explore magnetization dynamics at short time scales and enable ultrafast spintronic devices. We report the experimental observation of the optical spin transfer torque, predicted theoretically several years ago building the bridge between these two fields of spintronics research. In a pump-and-probe optical experiment we measure coherent spin precession in a (Ga,Mn)As ferromagnetic semiconductor excited by circularly polarized laser pulses. During the pump pulse, the spin angular momentum of photo-carriers generated by the absorbed light is transferred to the collective magnetization of the ferromagnet. We interpret the observed optical spin transfer torque and the magnetization precession it triggers on a quantitative microscopic level. Bringing the spin transfer physics into optics introduces a fundamentally distinct mechanism from the previously reported thermal and non-thermal laser excitations of magnets. Bringing optics into the field of spin transfer torques decreases by several orders of magnitude the timescales at which these phenomena are explored and utilized.

4 Apr 2012