All-optical reversible switching of local magnetization

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© 2007 American Intitute of Physics (AIP). This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/apl

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Journal ISSN

Volume Title

School of Science | A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2007

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Mcode

Degree programme

Language

en

Pages

041916

Series

Applied Physics Letters, Volume 91, Issue 4

Abstract

The authors demonstrate all-optical reversible switching of the magnetization direction in a uniformly magnetized ferrite-garnet film. The magnetization is switched by locally heating the film with a pulsed laser beam. The direction to which the magnetization flips is controlled by two parameters, the beam diameter and the pulse energy, and not by the direction of the external magnetic field. In the experiments, neither the magnitude nor the direction of the external magnetic field is changed. The results of this work illustrate the richness of optical methods to locally control the properties of magnetic materials and suggest all-optical device applications.

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Keywords

magnetic films, Faraday effect, magnetic fields, laser beams, polarization, magnetization direction, switching, bismuth-substituted ferrite garnets, heating

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Citation

Shevchenko, Andriy & Korppi, Maria & Lindfors, Klas & Heiliö, Miika & Kaivola, Matti & Il’yashenko, Eugene. & Johansen, Tom H.. 2007. All-optical reversible switching of local magnetization. Applied Physics Letters. Volume 91, Issue 4. 041916. ISSN 0003-6951 (printed). DOI: 10.1063/1.2760163.