Speaker
Andrea Eschenlohr
(Uni Duisburg-Essen)
Description
Controlling ultrafast charge and spin dynamics in solids with ultrashort laser pulses requires us to first identify the quantum processes relevant to light-matter interaction on femtosecond timescales. We disentangle the elementary processes behind ultrafast spin transfer at epitaxial Co/Cu(001) interfaces due to optical excitation with 1.5 eV photon energy by combining femtosecond time-resolved interface-sensitive magnetization-induced second harmonic generation and ab initio time-dependent density functional theory. Finding a convincing agreement between the observables in theory and experiment, we directly identify spin-dependent charge transfer between Co and Cu active at < 30 fs, and spin-flips mediated by the spin-orbit interaction, which lead to a loss of spatially integrated spin polarization and dominate at > 30 fs.
Primary authors
Andrea Eschenlohr
(Uni Duisburg-Essen)
Jinghao Chen
(Universität Duisburg-Essen)
Uwe Bovensiepen
(Universität Duisburg-Essen)
Co-authors
Eberhard K.U. Gross
(MPI for Microstructure Physics, Halle (Saale))
Peter Elliott
(MPI for Microstructure Physics, Halle (Saale))
Sangeeta Sharma
(MPI for Microstructure Physics, Halle (Saale))
Tristan Müller
(MPI for Microstructure Physics, Halle (Saale))
