Plasmonic generation of spin currents

Abstract

Surface plasmons, free-electron collective oscillations in metallic nanostructures, provide abundant routes to manipulate light-electron interactions that can localize light energy and alter electromagnetic field distributions at subwavelength scales. The research field of plasmonics thus integrates nano-photonics with electronics. In contrast, electronics is also entering a new era of spintronics, where spin currents play a central role in driving devices. However, plasmonics and spin-current physics have so far been developed independently. Here, we demonstrate the generation of spin currents by surface plasmons. Using Au nanoparticles embedded in a Pt/BiY2Fe5O12 bilayer film, we show that, when the Au nanoparticles fulfill the surface-plasmon-resonance condition, spin currents are generated across the Pt/BiY2Fe5O12 interface. This plasmonic spin pumping results from nonequilibrium states of spins excited by surface-plasmon-induced evanescent electromagnetic fields in the BiY2Fe5O12 layer. Such plasmonic spin pumping will invigorate research on spin-current physics, and pave the way for future spin-based plasmonic devices.

20 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (8)

• Direct electronic measurement of the spin Hall effect
• Spin Seebeck insulator
• Observation of the Spin-Seebeck Effect in a Ferromagnetic Semiconductor
• Theory of magnon-driven spin Seebeck effect
• Observation of Dirac plasmons in a topological insulator
• Longitudinal Spin Seebeck Effect Free from the Proximity Nernst Effect
• Proposal for a Topological Plasmon Spin Rectifier
• Influence of the magnetic field on the plasmonic properties of transparent Ni anti-dot arrays

Cited by in corpus (16)

• Coherent elastic excitation of spin waves
• Nanoscale magnetophotonics
• Chirality as Generalized Spin-Orbit Interaction in Spintronics
• Laser-Driven Multiferroics and Ultrafast Spin Current Generation
• Excitation of magnon accumulation by laser clocking as a source of long-range spin waves in transparent magnetic films
• Effects of surface plasmons on spin currents in a thin film system
• Broadband enhancement of the magneto-optical activity of hybrid Au loaded Bi:YIG
• Optically induced electron spin currents in the Kretschmann configuration
• Chiral surface and edge plasmons in ferromagnetic conductors
• Graphene Electrodynamics in the presence of the Extrinsic Spin Hall Effect
• What determines the sign of the spin Hall effects in Cu alloys doped with 5d elements?
• Impact of spin torques and spin pumping phenomena on magnon-plasmon polaritons in antiferromagnetic insulator-semiconductor heterostructures
• Magneto-Plasmonic Nanoantennas: Basics and Applications (Review)
• Resonant excitation of the spin-wave current in hybrid nanostructures
• Spin Current Generation by a Surface Plasmon Polariton
• Topological Magnon-Plasmon Hybrids