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Phononic switching of magnetization by the ultrafast Barnett effect

Nature volume 628, pages 540–544 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

The historic Barnett effect describes how an inertial body with otherwise zero net magnetic moment acquires spontaneous magnetization when mechanically spinning1,2. Breakthrough experiments have recently shown that an ultrashort laser pulse destroys the magnetization of an ordered ferromagnet within hundreds of femtoseconds3, with the spins losing angular momentum to circularly polarized optical phonons as part of the ultrafast Einstein–de Haas effect4,5. However, the prospect of using such high-frequency vibrations of the lattice to reciprocally switch magnetization in a nearby magnetic medium has not yet been experimentally explored. Here we show that the spontaneous magnetization gained temporarily by means of the ultrafast Barnett effect, through the resonant excitation of circularly polarized optical phonons in a paramagnetic substrate, can be used to permanently reverse the magnetic state of a heterostructure mounted atop the said substrate. With the handedness of the phonons steering the direction of magnetic switching, the ultrafast Barnett effect offers a selective and potentially universal method for exercising ultrafast non-local control over magnetic order.

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Fig. 1: Concept of the ultrafast Barnett effect and how it remotely switches magnetization.
Fig. 2: Resonant helicity-dependent switching of magnetization.
Fig. 3: Dependence of switching effects on optical and interlayer parameters.

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Data availability

All data that support the plots and other findings within this paper are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all technical staff at FELIX for technical support, and T. Janssen for measuring the transmission spectrum of the CdSe waveplate in the infrared spectral range. I.R. is grateful to M. Jeannin and N. Passler for assistance with the 4 × 4 transfer matrix calculations code. We acknowledge the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO-I) for their financial contribution, including the support of the FELIX Laboratory. C.S.D. acknowledges support from the European Research Council ERC Grant Agreement number 101115234 (HandShake). A.V.K. acknowledges support from the European Research Council ERC Grant Agreement number 101054664 (SPARTACUS).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. FELIX Laboratory, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    C. S. Davies, F. G. N. Fennema, I. Razdolski & A. Kirilyuk

  2. Radboud University, Institute for Molecules and Materials, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    C. S. Davies, F. G. N. Fennema, I. Razdolski, A. V. Kimel & A. Kirilyuk

  3. College of Science and Technology, Nihon University, Chiba, Japan

    A. Tsukamoto

  4. Faculty of Physics, University of Bialystok, Bialystok, Poland

    I. Razdolski

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  1. C. S. Davies
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Contributions

C.S.D., A.V.K. and A.K. conceived the project. A.T. fabricated the samples. C.S.D. carried out the experiments together with F.G.N.F., and C.S.D. processed the experimental results. I.R. carried out the transfer-matrix calculations. C.S.D. and A.K. jointly discussed the results and wrote the manuscript with contributions from all authors.

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Correspondence to C. S. Davies.

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Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Fig. 1 Magneto-optical images of wavelength- and helicity-dependent switching in the sapphire-mounted heterostructure.

a–q, Background-subtracted magneto-optical images of the magnetization of GdFeCo, mounted on a sapphire substrate, taken after sweeping circularly polarized macropulses with central wavelength λ as indicated. The pulses, of helicity σ±, are swept from left to right at a speed of 50 µm s−1 across a single-domain background with initial magnetic polarity M↑ or M↓. Scale bar, 210 µm (common to all images in a–q).

Extended Data Fig. 2 Magneto-optical images of wavelength- and helicity-dependent switching in the glass-mounted heterostructure.

a–l, Background-subtracted magneto-optical images of the magnetization of GdFeCo, mounted on a glass-ceramic substrate, taken after sweeping circularly polarized macropulses with central wavelength λ as indicated. The pulses, of helicity σ±, are swept from left to right at a speed of 5 µm s−1 across a single-domain background with initial magnetic polarity M↑ or M↓. Scale bar, 200 µm (common to all images in a–l).

Extended Data Fig. 3 Absence of helicity-dependent switching in the silicon-mounted heterostructure.

Spectral dependence of the helicity-dependent switching of magnetization measured in a GdFeCo/Si3N4 heterostructure grown on a silicon substrate, obtained with a sweeping speed of 40 µm s−1. Overlaid is the respective absorption spectrum characteristic of the silicon substrate, with the small (≈2×102 cm−1) feature at λ ≈ 16 µm corresponding to an infrared-inactive multi-phonon absorption band27. The net switching efficiency is defined as 0% when the GdFeCo film shows complete demagnetization irrespective of the optical helicity. The error bars correspond to ±1 standard deviation, as explained in the Methods.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 4 Magneto-optical images of wavelength- and helicity-independent demagnetization in the silicon-mounted heterostructure.

a–n, Background-subtracted magneto-optical images of the magnetization of GdFeCo, mounted on a silicon substrate, taken after sweeping circularly polarized macropulses with central wavelength λ as indicated. The pulses, of helicity σ±, are swept from left to right at a speed of 40 µm s−1 across a single-domain background with initial magnetic polarity M↑ or M↓. Scale bar, 150 µm (common to all images in a–n).

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Supplementary Notes 1–10, including Supplementary Figs. 1–15, Table 1 and References.

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Davies, C.S., Fennema, F.G.N., Tsukamoto, A. et al. Phononic switching of magnetization by the ultrafast Barnett effect. Nature 628, 540–544 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07200-x

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