Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme

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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus

MA 17: Spin Dynamics / Spin Torque II

MA 17.7: Talk

Wednesday, March 24, 2010, 16:00–16:15, H10

Ultrafast all-optical switching of magnetic domains using circular polarized laser light — •Alexander Hassdenteufel, Daniel Steil, Sabine Alebrand, Mirko Cinchetti, and Martin Aeschlimann — Department of Physics and Research Center OPTIMAS, TU Kaiserslautern, Germany

Magnetic switching is typically a continuous process that can be described as a damped precession of the magnetization in an external magnetic field. This process takes typically up to 1 ns. Recently it has been shown that it is possible to achieve magnetic switching within 100 fs [1,2]. This process is induced by circularly polarized ultrashort laser pulses, where the direction of this opto-magnetic switching is determined only by the helicity of light. In this contribution, the femtosecond laser-induced reversal mechanism of GdFeCo thin films is investigated by static and time-resolved magneto-optical Faraday measurements. In particular, we studied the dependence of the writing threshold on the laser duration and bandwidth by using chirped laser pulses with different durations from 0,1 ps to 1,5 ps as well as by modifying the pulses with a slit. This work was supported by the European project ULTRAMAGNETRON.

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