The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

Time-resolved specular inverse faraday effect: direct measurements of carrier spin relaxation times and optical nonlinearities in opaque solids

Time-resolved specular inverse faraday effect: direct measurements of carrier spin relaxation times and optical nonlinearities in opaque solids
Time-resolved specular inverse faraday effect: direct measurements of carrier spin relaxation times and optical nonlinearities in opaque solids
The Specular Inverse Faraday Effect (SIFE) is the nonlinear optical effect of stimulation of a medium with a strong circularly polarized pump wave, resulting in alteration of the polarization state of a liearly polarized probe wave reflected from the medium’s surface (see inset in Fig. 1). This effect has been recently demonstrated but not temporally resolved with picosecond optical pulses in various solids, including semiconductor,’.‘ diluted magnetic semiconductor: and superconducting materials4 There is no obvious limitation (except the laser pulse duration) on the time resolution of the method in the study of transient effects. Here we report on first observation of transient incoherent and coherent SIFE. In incoherent SIFE, the probe polarisation azimuth rotation in reflected light is dependent on the pump-induced difference of absorption coefficients for right and left circularly polarized light. This difference appears because of the transfer of the pump-light pulse momentum to the sample. Incoherent SIFE is directly spin-polarization sensitive. Coherent SIFE is a result of a degenerate four-wave mixing process on cubic nonlinearity in the skin layer of the crystal. It depends on the phase difference between the pump and the probe waves. Observation of the transient coherent and incoherent SIFE was performed with a bulk sample of good substrate quality GaAs crystal at room temperature. The light source used was a mode-locked Ti: sapphire laser pumped by an argon-ion laser. It produced T~ = 2 ps pulses at the wavelength A = 750 nm. GaAs is completely opaque at this wavelength with ... & more.
Bungay, A.R.
af92824a-1e97-4e31-9f03-24a9200e688b
Popov, S.V.
f078b148-b92c-4ffb-acff-76c6d68377fb
Shatwell, I.R.
d94ecb47-9f9f-411c-a0a8-1828c6be3e5d
Zheludev, N.I.
32fb6af7-97e4-4d11-bca6-805745e40cc6
Bungay, A.R.
af92824a-1e97-4e31-9f03-24a9200e688b
Popov, S.V.
f078b148-b92c-4ffb-acff-76c6d68377fb
Shatwell, I.R.
d94ecb47-9f9f-411c-a0a8-1828c6be3e5d
Zheludev, N.I.
32fb6af7-97e4-4d11-bca6-805745e40cc6

Bungay, A.R., Popov, S.V., Shatwell, I.R. and Zheludev, N.I. (1994) Time-resolved specular inverse faraday effect: direct measurements of carrier spin relaxation times and optical nonlinearities in opaque solids. European Quantum Electronics Conference. 28 Aug - 02 Sep 1994. (doi:10.1109/EQEC.1994.698079).

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

The Specular Inverse Faraday Effect (SIFE) is the nonlinear optical effect of stimulation of a medium with a strong circularly polarized pump wave, resulting in alteration of the polarization state of a liearly polarized probe wave reflected from the medium’s surface (see inset in Fig. 1). This effect has been recently demonstrated but not temporally resolved with picosecond optical pulses in various solids, including semiconductor,’.‘ diluted magnetic semiconductor: and superconducting materials4 There is no obvious limitation (except the laser pulse duration) on the time resolution of the method in the study of transient effects. Here we report on first observation of transient incoherent and coherent SIFE. In incoherent SIFE, the probe polarisation azimuth rotation in reflected light is dependent on the pump-induced difference of absorption coefficients for right and left circularly polarized light. This difference appears because of the transfer of the pump-light pulse momentum to the sample. Incoherent SIFE is directly spin-polarization sensitive. Coherent SIFE is a result of a degenerate four-wave mixing process on cubic nonlinearity in the skin layer of the crystal. It depends on the phase difference between the pump and the probe waves. Observation of the transient coherent and incoherent SIFE was performed with a bulk sample of good substrate quality GaAs crystal at room temperature. The light source used was a mode-locked Ti: sapphire laser pumped by an argon-ion laser. It produced T~ = 2 ps pulses at the wavelength A = 750 nm. GaAs is completely opaque at this wavelength with ... & more.

This record has no associated files available for download.

More information

Published date: 1994
Additional Information: Paper QM12
Venue - Dates: European Quantum Electronics Conference, 1994-08-28 - 1994-09-02

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 77117
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/77117
PURE UUID: cdbb90bb-852c-411e-9a5b-13a5b92aac80
ORCID for N.I. Zheludev: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-1013-6636

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 11 Mar 2010
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 02:36

Export record

Altmetrics

Contributors

Author: A.R. Bungay
Author: S.V. Popov
Author: I.R. Shatwell
Author: N.I. Zheludev ORCID iD

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×