TY - JOUR
AU - Phoebe Tengdin
AU - Christian Gentry
AU - Adam Blonsky
AU - Dmitriy Zusin
AU - Michael Gerrity
AU - Lukas Hellbrück
AU - Moritz Hofherr
AU - Justin Shaw
AU - Yaroslav Kvashnin
AU - Erna Delczeg-Czirjak
AU - Monika Arora
AU - Hans Nembach
AU - Thomas Silva
AU - Stefan Mathias
AU - Martin Aeschlimann
AU - Henry Kapteyn
AU - Danny Thonig
AU - Konstantinos Koumpouras
AU - Olle Eriksson
AU - Margaret Murnane
AB - Heusler compounds are exciting materials for future spintronics applications because they display a wide range of tunable electronic and magnetic interactions. Here, we use a femtosecond laser to directly transfer spin polarization from one element to another in a half-metallic Heusler material, Co2MnGe. This spin transfer initiates as soon as light is incident on the material, demonstrating spatial transfer of angular momentum between neighboring atomic sites on time scales \< 10 fs. Using ultrafast high harmonic pulses to simultaneously and independently probe the magnetic state of two elements during laser excitation, we find that the magnetization of Co is enhanced, while that of Mn rapidly quenches. Density functional theory calculations show that the optical excitation directly transfers spin from one magnetic sublattice to another through preferred spin-polarized excitation pathways. This direct manipulation of spins via light provides a path toward spintronic devices that can operate on few-femtosecond or faster time scales.
BT - Science Advances
DA - 2020-01
DO - 10.1126/sciadv.aaz1100
IS - 3
M1 - 3
N2 - Heusler compounds are exciting materials for future spintronics applications because they display a wide range of tunable electronic and magnetic interactions. Here, we use a femtosecond laser to directly transfer spin polarization from one element to another in a half-metallic Heusler material, Co2MnGe. This spin transfer initiates as soon as light is incident on the material, demonstrating spatial transfer of angular momentum between neighboring atomic sites on time scales \< 10 fs. Using ultrafast high harmonic pulses to simultaneously and independently probe the magnetic state of two elements during laser excitation, we find that the magnetization of Co is enhanced, while that of Mn rapidly quenches. Density functional theory calculations show that the optical excitation directly transfers spin from one magnetic sublattice to another through preferred spin-polarized excitation pathways. This direct manipulation of spins via light provides a path toward spintronic devices that can operate on few-femtosecond or faster time scales.
PB - American Association for the Advancement of Science
PY - 2020
EP - eaaz1100
T2 - Science Advances
TI - Direct light-induced spin transfer between different elements in a spintronic Heusler material via femtosecond laser excitation
UR - https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/3/eaaz1100
VL - 6
ER -