All-Optical Vector Measurement of Spin-Orbit-Induced Torques Using Both Polar and Quadratic Magneto-Optic Kerr Effects

Abstract

We demonstrate that the magneto-optic-Kerr effect with normal light incidence can be used to obtain quantitative optical measurements of both components of spin-orbit-induced torque (both the antidamping and effective-field components) in heavy-metal/ferromagnet bilayers. This is achieved by analyzing the quadratic Kerr effect as well as the polar Kerr effect. The two effects can be distinguished by properly selecting the polarization of the incident light. We use this all-optical technique to determine the spin-orbit torques generated by a series of Pt/Permalloy samples, finding values in excellent agreement with spin-torque ferromagnetic resonance measurements.

17 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Interplay of spin-orbit torque and thermoelectric effects in ferromagnet/normal metal bilayers
• Thickness dependence of linear and quadratic magneto-optical Kerr effect in ultrathin Fe(001) films

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• Cubic magneto-optic Kerr effect in Co(111) thin films
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• Polar and quadratic magneto-optical Kerr effects in nonmagnetic/ferromagnet bilayers for spin-orbit torque measurements