Frontiers in Nanotechnology (Feb 2022)

Efficient All-Optical Helicity Dependent Switching of Spins in a Pt/Co/Pt Film by a Dual-Pulse Excitation

  • Kihiro T. Yamada,
  • Kihiro T. Yamada,
  • Alexey V. Kimel,
  • Kiran Horabail Prabhakara,
  • Sergiu Ruta,
  • Tian Li,
  • Fuyuki Ando,
  • Sergey Semin,
  • Teruo Ono,
  • Teruo Ono,
  • Andrei Kirilyuk,
  • Andrei Kirilyuk,
  • Theo Rasing

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fnano.2022.765848
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 4

Abstract

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All-optical helicity dependent switching (AO-HDS), deterministic control of magnetization by circularly polarized laser pulses, allows to efficiently manipulate spins without the need of a magnetic field. However, AO-HDS in ferromagnetic metals so far requires many laser pulses for fully switching their magnetic states. Using a combination of a short, 90-fs linearly polarized pulse and a subsequent longer, 3-ps circularly polarized pulse, we demonstrate that the number of pulses for full magnetization reversal can be reduced to four pulse pairs in a single stack of Pt/Co/Pt. The obtained results suggest that the dual-pulse approach is a potential route towards realizing efficient AO-HDS in ferromagnetic metals.

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