Inertial displacement of a domain wall excited by ultra-short circularly polarized laser pulses

Janda, T., Roy, P.E., Otxoa, R.M., Soban, Z., Ramsay, A., Irvine, A.C., Trojánek, F., Surynek, M., Campion, R.P., Gallagher, B.L., Němec, P., Jungwirth, T. and Wunderlich, J. (2017) Inertial displacement of a domain wall excited by ultra-short circularly polarized laser pulses. Nature Communications, 8 . 15226/1-15226/7. ISSN 2041-1723

[thumbnail of DW_inertia_resub_rev_170226.pdf]
Preview
PDF - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader
Download (7MB) | Preview
[thumbnail of Domain ncomms15226.pdf]
Preview
PDF - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader
Available under Licence Creative Commons Attribution.
Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

Domain wall motion driven by ultra-short laser pulses is a prerequisite for envisaged low-power spintronics combining storage of information in magnetoelectronic devices with high speed and long distance transmission of information encoded in circularly polarized light. Here we demonstrate the conversion of the circular polarization of incident femtosecond laser pulses into inertial displacement of a domain wall in a ferromagnetic semiconductor. In our study we combine electrical measurements and magneto-optical imaging of the domain wall displacement with micromagnetic simulations. The optical spin transfer torque acts over a picosecond recombination time of the spin polarized photo-carriers which only leads to a deformation of the internal domain wall structure. We show that subsequent depinning and micro-meter distance displacement without an applied magnetic field or any other external stimuli can only occur due to the inertia of the domain wall.

Item Type: Article
Keywords: Electronic and spintronic devices, Spintronics, Ultrafast photonics
Schools/Departments: University of Nottingham, UK > Faculty of Science > School of Physics and Astronomy
Identification Number: 10.1038/ncomms15226
Depositing User: Gallagher, Bryan
Date Deposited: 21 Jul 2017 10:40
Last Modified: 12 Jun 2018 06:00
URI: https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/44289

Actions (Archive Staff Only)

Edit View Edit View