Optical Diode Effect at Spin-Wave Excitations of the Room-Temperature Multiferroic BiFeO3
Optical Diode Effect at Spin-Wave Excitations of the Room-Temperature Multiferroic BiFeO3
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DOI：
10.1103/physrevlett.115.127203
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发表时间：
2015-09-15
影响因子：
8.6
通讯作者：
Room, T.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kezsmarki, I.;Nagel, U.;Room, T.
多铁性允许对电极化进行磁控制，并对磁化进行电控制。这些静态磁电(ME)效应引起了人们极大的兴趣：通过电压无电流读取和写入磁性状态的能力将提供巨大的技术优势。动态或光学ME效应同样令人感兴趣，因为它们引起了单向光传播，就像最近在低温多铁体中观察到的那样。这一现象如果在室温下实现，将使光学二极管的发展成为可能，这种二极管可以单向传输非偏振光，但不能传输相反的方向。在这里，我们报道了在吉赫兹-太赫兹频率范围内，室温多铁BiFeO_3的强单向传输。支持理论将观测到的单向传输归因于自旋电流驱动的动态ME效应。这些发现是实现光学二极管的重要一步，并补充了利用磁场或电场切换传输方向的能力。
Multiferroics permit the magnetic control of the electric polarization and the electric control of the magnetization. These static magnetoelectric (ME) effects are of enormous interest: The ability to read and write a magnetic state current-free by an electric voltage would provide a huge technological advantage. Dynamic or optical ME effects are equally interesting, because they give rise to unidirectional light propagation as recently observed in low-temperature multiferroics. This phenomenon, if realized at room temperature, would allow the development of optical diodes which transmit unpolarized light in one, but not in the opposite, direction. Here, we report strong unidirectional transmission in the room-temperature multiferroic BiFeO3 over the gigahertz-terahertz frequency range. The supporting theory attributes the observed unidirectional transmission to the spin-current-driven dynamic ME effect. These findings are an important step toward the realization of optical diodes, supplemented by the ability to switch the transmission direction with a magnetic or electric field.