RESUMEN
Single femtosecond optical laser pulses, of sufficient intensity, are demonstrated to reverse magnetization in a process known as all-optical switching. Gold two-wire antennas are placed on the all-optical switching film TbFeCo. These structures are resonant with the optical field, and they create a field enhancement in the near-field which confines the area where optical switching can occur. The magnetic switching that occurs around and below the antenna is imaged using resonant X-ray holography and magnetic circular dichroism. The results not only show the feasibility of controllable switching with antenna assistance but also demonstrate the highly inhomogeneous nature of the switching process, which is attributed to the process depending on the material's heterogeneity.
RESUMEN
Surface plasmon polaritons (plasmons) have the potential to interface electronic and optical devices. They could prove extremely useful for integrated quantum information processing. Here we demonstrate on-chip electrical detection of single plasmons propagating along gold waveguides. The plasmons are excited using the single-photon emission of an optically emitting quantum dot. After propagating for several micrometers, the plasmons are coupled to a superconducting detector in the near-field. Correlation measurements prove that single plasmons are being detected.
Asunto(s)
Nanotecnología/métodos , Resonancia por Plasmón de Superficie/instrumentación , Electrónica , Diseño de Equipo , Ensayo de Materiales , Microscopía Electrónica de Rastreo/métodos , Nanopartículas/química , Puntos Cuánticos , Resonancia por Plasmón de Superficie/métodos , TemperaturaRESUMEN
The spectrally resolved magnetization dynamics in bismuth iron garnet shows a fluence dependent light induced modification of the magneto-optical Faraday spectrum. It is demonstrated that the relative contributions from the tetrahedral and octahedral iron sites to the Faraday spectrum change due to the impact of the pump pulse. This change explains the observed deviation from a linear dependence of the amplitude of the oscillations on the fluence, as expected for the inverse Faraday effect.