Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme

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DS: Fachverband Dünne Schichten

DS 41: [O] Plasmonics and Nanooptics VI (Joint Session DS/O/HL)

DS 41.8: Talk

Thursday, March 25, 2010, 16:45–17:00, H32

Surface Plasmon Excitation on Magnetoactive Hybrid Materials — •Dominic Zerulla and Brian Ashall — UCD Dublin, School of Physics, Dublin 4, Ireland

The interaction of surface plasmons polaritons (SPPs) - fluctuations in the electron density at the interface between media with dielectric constants of opposite sign - with magnetically ordered systems has attracted a significant interest in recent years, as a result of the possibility of enhancing magneto-optical properties, like the Faraday and Kerr effect. More recently, research has been focused on the merging of the areas of spintronics and plasmonics, thus developing a new field called spin-plasmonics. Here, we will present a systematic study of the excitation of SPPs on ferromagnetic materials in multilayered structures composed of thin films of nickel, iron, cobalt, capped by a silver layer [1]. The electromagnetic properties of the systems are theoretically and experimentally investigated as a function of the metal layers' thickness and the critical parameters in this study of the interaction between surface plasmon waves and the magneto-active material are discussed. Finally, an optimized structure for the investigations of spin-plasmonic effects in thin films is proposed.

[1] L. Sapienza, D. Zerulla, ``Surface Plasmon Excitation on Magnetoactive Materials", Phys. Rev. B 79, 033407 (2009)