SKM 2023 – scientific programme
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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus
MA 15: INNOMAG e.V. Prizes 2023 (Diplom-/Master and Ph.D. Thesis)
MA 15.1: Talk
Tuesday, March 28, 2023, 09:30–09:50, HSZ 401
Cubic magneto-optic Kerr effect in Ni(111) thin films — •Maik Gaerner1, Robin Silber2, Tobias Peters1, Jaroslav Hamrle3, and Timo Kuschel1 — 1Bielefeld University, Germany — 2IT4Innovations, VŠB - Technical University of Ostrava — 3Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
In most studies utilizing the magneto-optic Kerr effect (MOKE), the detected change of polarized light upon reflection from a magnetized sample is supposed to be proportional to the magnetization M. However, MOKE signatures quadratic in M have also been identified and utilized, e.g., to sense the structural order in Heusler compounds, to detect spin-orbit torque or to image antiferromagnetic domains.
In our study, we observe a strong anisotropic MOKE contribution of third order in M in Ni(111) thin films, attributed to a cubic magneto-optic tensor ∝ M3 [1]. This cubic MOKE (CMOKE) is responsible for a threefold in-plane angular dependence of the magnetically saturated longitudinal MOKE response. We further show that this angular dependence is affected by the amount of structural domain twinning in the sample. The degree of twinning is determined by off-specular X-ray diffraction. Finally, the dependence of the anisotropic CMOKE on the external magnetic field strength is investigated up to nearly 2 T. Our detailed study on CMOKE for two selected photon energies will open up new opportunities for CMOKE applications with sensitivity to twinning properties of thin films, e.g. CMOKE spectroscopy and microscopy or time-resolved CMOKE.
[1] M. Gaerner et al., arXiv: 2205.08298