202 research outputs found
S-wave non-leptonic decays and gauge fields
S-wave non-leptonic decay amplitudes are obtained from a gauge-field model and the results are also interpreted from the point of view of mixing of particle fields. The model gives different effective enhancements for K- and hyperon decays as required by experiment.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/32668/1/0000034.pd
All-thermal switching of amorphous Gd-Fe alloys: analysis of structural properties and magnetization dynamics
In recent years, there has been an intense interest in understanding the
microscopic mechanism of thermally induced magnetization switching driven by a
femtosecond laser pulse. Most of the effort has been dedicated to periodic
crystalline structures while the amorphous counterparts have been less studied.
By using a multiscale approach, i.e. first-principles density functional theory
combined with atomistic spin dynamics, we report here on the very intricate
structural and magnetic nature of amorphous Gd-Fe alloys for a wide range of Gd
and Fe atomic concentrations at the nanoscale level. Both structural and
dynamical properties of Gd-Fe alloys reported in this work are in good
agreement with previous experiments. We calculated the dynamic behavior of
homogeneous and inhomogeneous amorphous Gd-Fe alloys and their response under
the influence of a femtosecond laser pulse. In the homogeneous sample, the Fe
sublattice switches its magnetization before the Gd one. However, the temporal
sequence of the switching of the two sublattices is reversed in the
inhomogeneous sample. We propose a possible explanation based on a mechanism
driven by a combination of the Dzyaloshiskii-Moriya interaction and exchange
frustration, modeled by an antiferromagnetic second-neighbour exchange
interaction between Gd atoms in the Gd-rich region. We also report on the
influence of laser fluence and damping effects in the all-thermal switching.Comment: Accepted in Physical Review B as a regular article. It contains 14
pages and 14 figure
Two-magnon bound state causes ultrafast thermally induced magnetisation switching.
There has been much interest recently in the discovery of thermally induced magnetisation switching using femtosecond laser excitation, where a ferrimagnetic system can be switched deterministically without an applied magnetic field. Experimental results suggest that the reversal occurs due to intrinsic material properties, but so far the microscopic mechanism responsible for reversal has not been identified. Using computational and analytic methods we show that the switching is caused by the excitation of two-magnon bound states, the properties of which are dependent on material factors. This discovery allows us to accurately predict the onset of switching and the identification of this mechanism will allow new classes of materials to be identified or designed for memory devices in the THz regime
Field-driven femtosecond magnetization dynamics induced by ultrastrong coupling to THz transients
Controlling ultrafast magnetization dynamics by a femtosecond laser is
attracting interest both in fundamental science and industry because of the
potential to achieve magnetic domain switching at ever advanced speed. Here we
report experiments illustrating the ultrastrong and fully coherent light-matter
coupling of a high-field single-cycle THz transient to the magnetization vector
in a ferromagnetic thin film. We could visualize magnetization dynamics which
occur on a timescale of the THz laser cycle and two orders of magnitude faster
than the natural precession response of electrons to an external magnetic
field, given by the Larmor frequency. We show that for one particular
scattering geometry the strong coherent optical coupling can be described
within the framework of a renormalized Landau Lifshitz equation. In addition to
fundamentally new insights to ultrafast magnetization dynamics the coherent
interaction allows for retrieving the complex time-frequency magnetic
properties and points out new opportunities in data storage technology towards
significantly higher storage speed.Comment: 25 page
Vectorial Control of Magnetization by Light
Coherent light-matter interactions have recently extended their applications
to the ultrafast control of magnetization in solids. An important but
unrealized technique is the manipulation of magnetization vector motion to make
it follow an arbitrarily designed multi-dimensional trajectory. Furthermore,
for its realization, the phase and amplitude of degenerate modes need to be
steered independently. A promising method is to employ Raman-type nonlinear
optical processes induced by femtosecond laser pulses, where magnetic
oscillations are induced impulsively with a controlled initial phase and an
azimuthal angle that follows well defined selection rules determined by the
materials' symmetries. Here, we emphasize the fact that temporal variation of
the polarization angle of the laser pulses enables us to distinguish between
the two degenerate modes. A full manipulation of two-dimensional magnetic
oscillations is demonstrated in antiferromagnetic NiO by employing a pair of
polarization-twisted optical pulses. These results have lead to a new concept
of vectorial control of magnetization by light
Experimental observation of the optical spin transfer torque
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.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure
Ultrafast and Distinct Spin Dynamics in Magnetic Alloys
Controlling magnetic order on ultrashort timescales is crucial for engineering the next-generation magnetic devices that combine ultrafast data processing with ultrahigh-density data storage. An appealing scenario in this context is the use of femtosecond (fs) laser pulses as an ultrafast, external stimulus to fully set the orientation and the magnetization magnitude of a spin ensemble. Achieving such control on ultrashort timescales, e.g., comparable to the excitation event itself, remains however a challenge due to the lack of understanding the dynamical behavior of the key parameters governing magnetism: The elemental magnetic moments and the exchange interaction. Here, we investigate the fs laser-induced spin dynamics in a variety of multi-component alloys and reveal a dissimilar dynamics of the constituent magnetic moments on ultrashort timescales. Moreover, we show that such distinct dynamics is a general phenomenon that can be exploited to engineer new magnetic media with tailor-made, optimized dynamic properties. Using phenomenological considerations, atomistic modeling and time-resolved X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD), we demonstrate demagnetization of the constituent sub-lattices on significantly different timescales that depend on their magnetic moments and the sign of the exchange interaction. These results can be used as a “recipe” for manipulation and control of magnetization dynamics in a large class of magnetic materials
Ultrafast heating as a sufficient stimulus for magnetization reversal in a ferrimagnet.
The question of how, and how fast, magnetization can be reversed is a topic of great practical interest for the manipulation and storage of magnetic information. It is generally accepted that magnetization reversal should be driven by a stimulus represented by time-non-invariant vectors such as a magnetic field, spin-polarized electric current, or cross-product of two oscillating electric fields. However, until now it has been generally assumed that heating alone, not represented as a vector at all, cannot result in a deterministic reversal of magnetization, although it may assist this process. Here we show numerically and demonstrate experimentally a novel mechanism of deterministic magnetization reversal in a ferrimagnet driven by an ultrafast heating of the medium resulting from the absorption of a sub-picosecond laser pulse without the presence of a magnetic field
Impulsive Fermi magnon-phonon resonance in antiferromagnetic
Understanding spin-lattice interactions in antiferromagnets is one of the
most fundamental issues at the core of the recently emerging and booming fields
of antiferromagnetic spintronics and magnonics. Recently, coherent nonlinear
spin-lattice coupling was discovered in an antiferromagnet which opened the
possibility to control the nonlinear coupling strength and thus showing a novel
pathway to coherently control magnon-phonon dynamics. Here, utilizing intense
narrow band terahertz (THz) pulses and tunable magnetic fields up to 7 T, we
experimentally realize the conditions of the Fermi magnon-phonon resonance in
antiferromagnetic . These conditions imply that both the spin and the
lattice anharmonicities harvest energy transfer between the subsystems, if the
magnon eigenfrequency is twice lower than the frequency of the phonon
. Performing THz pump-infrared probe spectroscopy in conjunction
with simulations, we explore the coupled magnon-phonon dynamics in the vicinity
of the Fermi-resonance and reveal the corresponding fingerprints of an
impulsive THz-induced response. This study focuses on the role of nonlinearity
in spin-lattice interactions, providing insights into the control of coherent
magnon-phonon energy exchange
- …