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Structural dynamics during laser-induced ultrafast demagnetization

Emmanuelle Jal, Víctor López-Flores, Niko Pontius, Tom Ferté, Nicolas Bergeard, Christine Boeglin, Boris Vodungbo, Jan Lüning, and Nicolas Jaouen
Phys. Rev. B 95, 184422 – Published 18 May 2017

Abstract

The mechanism underlying femtosecond laser-pulse-induced ultrafast magnetization dynamics remains elusive, despite two decades of intense research on this phenomenon. Most experiments focused so far on characterizing magnetization and charge carrier dynamics, while the first direct measurements of structural dynamics during ultrafast demagnetization were reported only very recently. We here present our investigation of the infrared laser-pulse-induced ultrafast demagnetization process in a thin Ni film, which characterizes simultaneously magnetization and structural dynamics. This is achieved by employing femtosecond time-resolved x-ray resonant magnetic reflectivity (tr-XRMR) as the probe technique. The experimental results reveal unambiguously that the subpicosecond magnetization quenching is accompanied by strong changes in nonmagnetic x-ray reflectivity. These changes vary with reflection angle, and changes up to 30% have been observed. By modeling the x-ray reflectivity of the investigated thin film, we can reproduce these changes by a variation of the apparent Ni layer thickness of up to 1%. Extending these simulations to larger incidence angles, we show that tr-XRMR can be employed to discriminate experimentally between currently discussed models describing the ultrafast demagnetization phenomenon.

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  • Received 6 January 2017
  • Revised 21 April 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.95.184422

©2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Emmanuelle Jal1,*, Víctor López-Flores2,3, Niko Pontius4, Tom Ferté5, Nicolas Bergeard5, Christine Boeglin5, Boris Vodungbo1, Jan Lüning1,2, and Nicolas Jaouen2

  • 1Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ. Paris 06, CNRS, Laboratoire de Chimie Physique – Matière et Rayonnement, 75005 Paris, France
  • 2Synchrotron SOLEIL, Saint-Aubin, Boite Postale 48, 91192 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France
  • 3Institute of Materials Science of Seville (CSIC - University of Seville), Av. Americo Vespucio, 49, 41092 Seville, Spain
  • 4Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie GmbH, Albert-Einstein-Straße 15, 12489 Berlin, Germany
  • 5Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, Institut de Physique et Chimie des Matériaux de Strasbourg, UMR 7504, F-67000 Strasbourg, France

  • *emmanuelle.jal@upmc.fr

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Issue

Vol. 95, Iss. 18 — 1 May 2017

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