Experimental observation of the optical spin-orbit torque
arXiv:1207.0307 · doi:10.1038/nphoton.2013.76
Abstract
Spin polarized carriers electrically injected into a magnet from an external polarizer can exert a spin transfer torque (STT) on the magnetization. The phe- nomenon belongs to the area of spintronics research focusing on manipulating magnetic moments by electric fields and is the basis of the emerging technologies for scalable magnetoresistive random access memories. In our previous work we have reported experimental observation of the optical counterpart of STT in which a circularly polarized pump laser pulse acts as the external polarizer, allowing to study and utilize the phenomenon on several orders of magnitude shorter timescales than in the electric current induced STT. Recently it has been theoretically proposed and experimentally demonstrated that in the absence of an external polarizer, carriers in a magnet under applied electric field can develop a non-equilibrium spin polarization due to the relativistic spin-orbit coupling, resulting in a current induced spin-orbit torque (SOT) acting on the magnetization. In this paper we report the observation of the optical counterpart of SOT. At picosecond time-scales, we detect excitations of magnetization of a ferromagnetic semiconductor (Ga,Mn)As which are independent of the polarization of the pump laser pulses and are induced by non-equilibrium spin-orbit coupled photo-holes.
4 figure, supplementary information. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1101.1049
References in corpus (12)
- Spin Transfer Torques
- Theory of ferromagnetic (III,Mn)V semiconductors
- Experimental observation of the optical spin transfer torque
- Photo-induced precession of magnetization in ferromagnetic (Ga,Mn)As
- Light-Induced Magnetic Precession in (Ga,Mn)As Slabs: Hybrid Standing-Wave Damon-Eshbach Modes
- Light-induced magnetization precession in GaMnAs
- Coherent Magnetization Precession in GaMnAs induced by Ultrafast Optical Excitation
- Direct measurement of the three dimensional magnetization vector trajectory in GaMnAs by a magneto-optical pump-and-probe method
- Coherent control of magnetization precession in ferromagnetic semiconductor (Ga,Mn)As
- Coherent manipulation of magnetization precession in ferromagnetic semiconductor (Ga,Mn)As with successive optical pumping
- Low voltage control of ferromagnetism in a semiconductor p-n junction
- Optical spin transfer in ferromagnetic semiconductors
Cited by in corpus (31)
- Antiferromagnetic opto-spintronics: Part of a collection of reviews on antiferromagnetic spintronics
- Inverse magneto-refraction as a mechanism for laser modification of spin-spin exchange parameters and subsequent terahertz emission from iron oxides
- Spin-dependent phenomena and device concepts explored in (Ga,Mn)As
- Optical determination of the Neel vector in a CuMnAs thin-film antiferromagnet
- Laser-driven quantum magnonics and THz dynamics of the order parameter in antiferromagnets
- Relativistic theory of spin relaxation mechanisms in the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation of spin dynamics
- Optical spin transfer torque driven domain wall motion in ferromagnetic semiconductor
- Ultrafast Probes of Nonequilibrium Hole Spin Relaxation in Ferromagnetic Semiconductor GaMnAs
- High Field Anomalies of Equilibrium and Ultrafast Magnetism in Rare-Earth-Transition Metal Ferrimagnets
- Polarisation-dependent single-pulse ultrafast optical switching of an elementary ferromagnet
- Thermal Conductivity of Oxide Tunnel Barriers in Magnetic Tunnel Junctions Measured by Ultrafast Thermoreflectance and Magneto-optic Kerr Effect Thermometry
- Dynamical properties of three terminal magnetic tunnel junctions: spintronics meets spin-orbitronics
- Manipulating Femtosecond Spin--Orbit Torques with Laser Pulse Sequences to Control Magnetic Memory States and Ringing
- Switching ferromagnetic spins by an ultrafast laser pulse: Emergence of giant optical spin-orbit torque
- Domain wall dynamics due to femtosecond laser-induced superdiffusive spin transport
- Optical spin transfer and spin-orbit torques in thin film ferromagnets
- Interface-induced field-like optical spin torque in a ferromagnet/heavy metal heterostructure
- Comparison of micromagnetic parameters of ferromagnetic semiconductors (Ga,Mn)(As,P) and (Ga,Mn)As
- All-optical non-linear chiral ultrafast magnetization dynamics driven by circularly polarized magnetic fields
- Terahertz spin dynamics driven by an optical spin-orbit torque
- Cubic magneto-optic Kerr effect in Ni(111) thin films with and without twinning
- Theory of superdiffusive spin transport in noncollinear magnetic multilayers
- Collective magnetization dynamics in ferromagnetic (Ga,Mn)As mediated by photo-excited carriers
- Quasi-nondegenerate pump-probe magnetooptical experiment in GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure based on spectral filtration
- Giant quadratic magneto-optical response of thin YIG films for sensitive magnetometric experiments
- 4D visualization of the photoexcited coherent magnon by an X-ray free electron laser
- Quadratic magneto-optical Kerr effect spectroscopy: Polarization variation method for investigation of magnetic and magneto-optical anisotropies
- Establishing micromagnetic parameters of ferromagnetic semiconductor (Ga,Mn)As
- Cubic magneto-optic Kerr effect in Co(111) thin films
- Cubic-in-magnetization contributions to the magneto-optic Kerr effect investigated for Ni(001) and Ni(111) thin films
- Field-derivative torque induced magnetization reversal in ferrimagnetic GdYbBiFeO