
New Optical Route to Magnetic State Control
Date: Monday, April 09, 2012 @ 19:54:32 UTC Topic: Science
by Noriaki Kida, Department of Advanced Materials Science, The University of Tokyo, 5-1-5 Kashiwa-no-ha, Chiba 277-8561, Japan
Optically switched magnetic domains are easier to control if the light source is circularly polarized.
Devices that harness the spin of the electron (rather than solely its
charge) to process and store information are the basis of spintronics.
Currently, static forces are used to switch the magnetization in a
spintronics device, but the vision for future devices is to be able to
switch them at high speeds with short-pulsed laser light...
...With short pulses of circularly polarized laser light, they flip the magnetization of a single magnetic domain within ∼5ps. de Jong et al.
achieve this by taking advantage of the interaction between light of a
certain helicity and a spin reorientation transition unique to the
material they studied. The present finding is an important step for the
complete light control of magnetic domains in a variety of magnets, and
highlights an important light-matter interaction in magnets....
Full article: http://physics.aps.org/articles/v5/41
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