Ultrafast Magneto-Plasmonic Effects in Ferrimagnetic Nanomaterials

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This project is jointly funded by the Electronic and Photonic Materials (EPM) and Condensed Matter Physics (CMP) Programs, both in the Division of Materials Research. Non-technical Description: The broader significance of this project is for the emerging Big Data era. The research is aimed to investigate a new field of ultrafast magnetism switching that could improve data storage, retrieval, and processing. The ultrafast switching has a potential to enable data storage media with unprecedented performance. The project involves researchers with different knowledge background of physics, materials science, optics and nanotechnology and thus provides a highly interdisciplinary training environment for graduate, undergraduate and K-12 students (including women and minorities) and the opportunities for them to learn and work together. This project generates new knowledge and educates future workforce in an emerging research area. Technical Description: The objective of the project is to study the complicated interactions of electron, spin and lattice for the spatial resolution beyond the optical far-field diffraction limit. The goals are to understand and manipulate the nanoscale magnetism at ultrafast time scales. Such manipulation is enabled by using plasmonic effects to achieve the nanometer scale resolution for otherwise not accessible due to the diffraction limit and by applying state-of-the-art ultrafast techniques with femtosecond lasers to achieve ultra-short temporal scale of magnetization reversal, which occurs in ferrimagnetic nanomaterials. The scope of the project is at the frontier of ultrafast all-optical magnetization reversal of ferrimagnetic nanomaterials, and merges two scientific areas: plasmonics and magnetism. The fundamental physics of ultra-fast plasmonic magnetism is explored via a variety of state-of-the-art experimental techniques and nanomaterial processing methods.